Day 21 - Cabo Pulmo National Park

Today is supposed to be Janice's day to blog but she woke up with the crud so I am doing our daily update. It takes a lot to keep Janice down and she rarely gets sick so when she woke up with a slight fever, chills and a headache I knew it was going to be a "rest-in-bed day" for her. I felt fine other than a few sniffles so I wanted to let her rest and do my part to embrace paradise. It wasn't the same without her but I made the most of the day.

I took the Boys for a walk on the beach ⛱️, came back and made coffee and we had a pastry. Janice urged me to go on the snorkel tour we had planned because the weather was perfect, not too windy as the previous two days and the forecast is for windy conditions the next two days. There was a chalkboard sign yesterday saying snorkel tours at 11:30 am so I planned my day accordingly. I decided to take the Boys for a walk into town to get signed up. When I got there at 8:45, Tristan, the young man signing up people said the boat was leaving at 9:00 but would save me a spot if I could get back in 10 minutes. I ran back to the campground with the dogs in tow, got my gear and jumped in the Honda fully expecting a round of applause for breaking all the rules of time travel and not wiping out a goat herd on the road in the process.

 I arrived back in time only to find out I had missed the boat. But there was another boat leaving at 10 am. Phew!

I relaxed and got my gear. I struggled gracefully to get into my wetsuit, dislocating both shoulders and putting great strains on all the wrong places of my body. I took great pride that I didn't moan, grown or expel noxious fumes from various orafices of my body as did several of my companions. 

We headed out in the boat. Our Captain, Juan and guide, Fernando (the same fellow who encouraged us to camp in quicksand on our arrival) spoke pretty good English and had lots of great information to share with us. They couldn't have been more engaging, genuine and knowledgeable.

Snorkeling Cabo Pulmo was one of the greatest experiences of my life. This area is a marine national park and the Cabo Pulmo community is dedicated to conservation. There are over 500 species of fish here. I saw a Jack Tornado with over 10,000 Jack fish, where the large silver fish spin together to protect from predators. We saw thousands of fish of many species and sea anemone and coral. https://pronatura-noroeste.org/en/cabo-pulmo-coral-reef-system-example/ 

The pictures from above are ruthlessly stolen from the internet because I don't have an underwater camera and lacked the foresight to start a GoFundMe for one before we left but am accepting donations for our next trip. It was a magical 3-hour trip to another world.

I raced back to camp around 1:30 and Janice was in bed sleeping. Comet and the Boys took good care of her. Comet paid close interest to a female hooded oriole which landed on the screen in the bedroom .

I breathlessly told Janice about our adventures and convinced her to stay here until Friday (next 2 days forecast to be too windy) to go out together. 

We relaxed the rest of the afternoon and walked along the seashore to dinner. A town dog who showed up in camp followed us. She, like all of the town dogs we have encountered, didn't beg, they just wanted to hang with happy humans.