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Chapters |
 Angela horse guide, Cabo
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Chapters |
Angela horse guide, Cabo
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2.Cabo
Larry and I arrived in Cabo San Lucas on March 2nd; walking the marina
in the evening with a few coronas in my belly I couldn't help but
notice the many tour booths offering whale watching tours.
Insatiable,
I booked one and headed out onto the Pacific the next morning.
The
tour was fairly unspectacular; after visiting the resident lobos
marinos
on the rocks (sea lions) we rode the Pacific swells well away from Los
Arcos until the captain spotted two gray whales surrounded by a pod
of dolphins. We had a few brief looks before the whales moved
away
in a
hurry and disappeared. Twenty minutes later I spotted a humpback
whale; after zooming over, the whale blew about 20 feet from the boat
and
rolled on its side, showing the curve of its mouth before fluking--my
first wintering humpback! Ten minutes later I pointed out the
whale
again some distance away; we had two more looks before calling it a
day and heading back to town. It was probably luck, but I did
feel
a little
smug about spotting our only humpback both times we found it.
The unpaid “naturalist” gave us tidbits of misinformation which I did
my
best to ignore right up until he told us that gray whales don’t migrate
past Canada. I just couldn’t let that one go (gray whales make
one
of the
longest mammalian migrations from Mexico to the Bering Sea and back
each year); he didn't talk to me for the rest of the trip.
On the 4th I got up early and took a cab to Las Cuadras San
Francisco
for a horseback ride through a little canyon in the desert. My
guide,
a
young adventurous woman from Canada, turned out to be the highlight
of the expedition, despite the joy of riding. She was to be the
first
of a
surprising number of friends accrued on this trip.
Later that afternoon, Larry and I lugged our gear down to the Solmar
V, our home for the next seven days. Looking over all the faces
on
the
boat we were surprised to see one of the divers from our last
Revillagigedo
trip (this was his 8th voyage on the Solmar V) as well as four
familiar crew members, two of whom claimed to remember my face.
The boat was more of less full, though a group of Spaniards and
Russians
(segregated from the rest of us by their preference and the language
barrier) made getting to know everyone a little less daunting. We
thoroughly enjoyed the company and came away with a few very good
friends.
That night I kicked off my sandals on the way into my bunk and
didn’t put them on again until we were back in Cabo.