Took a right at Cataviña....

Had a nice trip to the un-named coast at the beginning of the month. Water temps were nice and ranged from 67 to 75. Had some decent waves, good weather; no rain this year, thank goodness. Ice lasted a total of 11 days for our dedicated beer and soda cooler and 12 days for the food cooler, not bad for a 13 day trip! Fishing really sucked, couple of small 8 inch Bonito, a needle fish, and several baby halibut in the 6 to 16 inch range. No breakdowns or flats. Saw a couple other campers, but no fishermen stopped by as in years past. Night skies were brilliantly clear, especially before moon rise; saw some awesome meteor falls including one that was a bright green streak (second one I’ve seen. The other one was on this coast too), and a large one that broke into about a dozen pieces as it fell. Saw lots of lightning flashes from the t-storms over on the Gulf as well.

Reroute on the free road was easy going down early in the morning, but a PITA coming back. Mextrans in their infinite wisdom decided mid-day on a Thursday would be an awesome time to repave the road and close it down to one lane and alternate traffic. Are they consulting with Caltrans?

Border wait coming home was the fastest I’ve had in decades. 20-25 minutes once we were in line. It took longer to get to the border as the police had closed off the road that parallels the fence near the top of the hill, and were rerouting traffic through TJ. Just as we got up to the reroute, they re-opened the main road, and we were on our way. Could have been even faster, but one of the guards had an attitude and was grilling everyone who went to his station, and opening and inspecting vehicles too. The guy spent over 5 minutes with my sister. I got the other guard and all he asked was “Anything to declare?” I was through in 60 seconds.

A photo montage follows:


The Drive in.


Cardon forest.


Left or right?



At the coast.


Warm water! Just a tad colder than it was in 1997 when it reached 78 during the last super El Niño.







Party Wave!



Remote beach, only real access is hiking.



Which way did they go?



Fun in the sand.



The gulls liked the baked almejas we fed them on this walk.


Cool find on a hike.



Poor old guy must have liked eating rocks. Those are some worn teeth!
Would have loved to bring it home, but not worth the hassle of violating the Marine Mammal Protection of 1972, and any Mexican laws….



We were up there!



View from a ledge.



There were 3 to 4 of these trawlers running day and night the entire time we were there. This was the largest, that got close enough to photograph. But we could see their lights at night and hear the rumble of the engines over the water. They even had a helicopter that swung by to check us out a couple of times. May be why the fish are gone.



Toxic yellow water, about ¼ mile long slick several miles from our camp. Maybe from the trawlers….?



A squadron of Pelicans. Yep, that’s what they’re called.



An attempt to photograph Scorpio. As well as some light painting.



Shade house at night with Cassiopeia off to the right.



A nightly visitor to our spot. Only one this year, at least only one photographed at a time.



Sniffing at our shade house. My nephew’s feet are about a foot away from Mr. Yote’s nose.



Desert camp spot on our last night.



A “little” visitor to our desert camp.



Sunset, last day in the desert.



Sunset with Jesus clouds, to end the slide show.

Thanks for the lift

Yep, a simple IR wildlife camera. We attached it to a 2x4 and stuck that in a bucket of rocks so it can be moved to different spots on different nights.

It's an old one, so a lot of photos don’t come out real well, these were the best; but, it's still fun to see who's lurking in the dark, and when they visit (it's usually several times of the night and morning). One year I think the pack was at least 5 strong.

I also did a time lapse with my smart phone where it took a photo every 15 seconds, and then stitched it into a movie [app name is “Lapse It Pro”] Really cool to see the tides change, the clouds build and simmer down, and all our activities over an 11-hour period reduced down to a ~2.5 minute clip….However, I’m not going to share that one as it shows more landmark details than I care to share . But I highly recommend trying it out. I did have to do a battery change half-way through.

Thanks.

yeah, the only left point in 200 miles!