Thursday, December 25, 2014

Sea of Cortez Christmas morning 2014

 

Rattlesnake beach, our new home for the winter.

Click on the link below to check out our Youtube video, Christmas morning 2014! 




 

Thursday, December 18, 2014

It's about the fish


It has been just over a month and we have managed to settle into the Baja lifestyle quite nicely.  Lots of activity and lots of happy hours with friends on the beach.

I am trying to get back in the swing of a daily exercise routine, kayaking, a little yoga, walking and even a short 5 km jog in the morning (thanks to my little sister making me feel lazy).  Ken and I have a 14 km mountian bike loop we do every other day or so, nothing too crazy but we are both glad to be a little more active than we have been in the last year or so.  Throw in some bocci at happy hour and I think you have a good cross-training schedule.

For Ken it is all about the fishing right now.  He is loving his new 3.40 mt Zodiac and it is just that little bit bigger for those days I go out with him.  The weather has not been too windy so he has been able to go out fishing close to every morning and very rarely comes back empty handed.  I am learning a whole lot of new fish recipes, not to mention we have tried our hand smoking a few times with a few different recipes.  We shouldn't go hungry anyway!

We have been a few short motorbike rides and Carl has offered us his sailboat to use but so far we are just happy relaxing on the beach.

Christmas is less than a week away, and tis the season...potluck appies on Christmas eve, potluck dinner Christmas day (complete with turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy and brussel sprouts), a bon-fire New Years Eve and a potluck brunch New Years day, you'd think all we do is eat down here!!! 






We put out a hummingbird feeder at our campsite and now have a variety of birds visiting us daily.  This is a Costa male hummingbird, sporting an iridescent purple head.  While having my morning coffee I have to sometimes duck as they whiz by fighting over space at the feeder and males fight over the females.


On one of our site-seeing bike rides into Agua verde we stopped to take advantage of water over the road...a mexician car wash.


The view of Agua verde from the viewpoint on the top of the hill is always breathtaking.  It was a pleasant surprise to find the road had been paved for 10 km in from the highway, with another 8 km of gravel to the top of the hill and 7 km down to the beach it makes for a great afternoon ride from our beach.


An assortment of seabirds sit on some rocks along the shore, a pelican, gulls and some blue footed booby-birds.


Ken has been going fishing crazy!  Here he nets another dorado, this one is a female and while in the water it's black and when you bring it in the color changes to yellow then silver and blue...really, I saw it with my own eyes.  They are good fighters in the water and just as good on the grill.


Cleaning his catch on the beach, Ken feeds the locals...pelicanos that is.


One mornings catch; a sheepshead, two cabrilla, and a spotted leopard gruper.


Our neighbour, Iron Mike, has a smoker and we have borrowed it a few times, smoking fish when we have too much to eat fresh.  We have found our favourite type is a teriyaki black pepper flavour.