Despite the testicle-shrinking 23C water temps, last weekend's trip through Cabo Pulmo and the island of Espiritu Santo was well worth the shivering and the swearing.
On Friday night, we drove out from La Paz down to Cabo Pulmo, in what the guidebook promised was a 2 hour drive, but failed to mention the timing was only achievable if a) you didn't try to leave La Paz during rush hour and b) you knew the roads. Lucky for us, around 45 minutes into the drive as we finally left the big-box stores of suburban La Paz behind us, we found a local driver to tailgate. This meant we could keep our 100kph pace through some pretty twisty mountain roads and still manage to avoid all cows, potholes and speedbumps along the way.
Now, Cabo Pulmo (Pop: 52) feels like it's at the end of the world -- the last 10k of the drive was on gravel/dirt road (Troy: To hell with this, we're in a rental car! Wheeeee!), everything there is solar-powered, there are no signs, nothing ...but still the menu is in US$ (with an outrageous peso conversion) and everything costs twice as much. *sigh*
The diving was nothing to shout about -- though I did get a cute shot of a very curious blenny -- and I think it was mostly due to the wintry conditions. Strong winds all week meant a bit of a swell and pretty yucky viz underwater. Maybe a return trip in summer for the schooling manta rays, hammerheads, whales, whalesharks, bass the size of cars etc etc .... For all we knew, they were right there with us on the dive, it's just that we couldn't see them :p
On Sunday, we headed out on a day trip from La Paz to the island of Espirtu Santo to snorkel with the sealions. Now, that was well worth the 700 pesos and the frigid water -- 3mm suits just don't quite cut it, especially when the lobos de marinos keep trying to give you lovebites.
After the amorous sea lions, we managed to take in a leisurely lunch and siesta on a beautiful beach right around the corner, before another snorkel (stargazers and jellyfish!) and a fantastic ride home in the company of leaping mobula rays (sorry, no pics :( ) and two humpback whales (Reasons 13 through to infinity to love Baja California). Does anyone want to buy us a boat?
