More Puerto Penasco

In my previous post, I mentioned the storm approaching us on Friday and Saturday.  Friday was just wind (25-30 MPH) but then the rain started overnight.  On Saturday we were scheduled to move to a beach site.  I went out and got everything unhooked - electric cord, water hose, sewer hose, DISH, and got the rear jacks raised.  The RV Park came with a tractor and moved our trailer to our beach site.  Then I had to get everything reconnected again (except the DISH).  By then I was soaked.  But it was worth it.  We turned our chairs around at the back of the trailer and just watched the waves.  

By Monday the storm had passed and I got the DISH set up (can't be without TV, you know!!).

This is our site.

And the view.

Low tide.  

Judy has been into crafts here and the ladies got together one day and decorated these glasses.  Thanks go to our daughter, Julie, who originally gave us a set for Christmas and then helped Judy create the forms to be applied to the cups.  (Of course, before we left TX, we had buy 20 of the cups to take with us to MX!!).

This was another craft that Judy made from wine bottle corks.  Ingenious...

Another crafty idea.

Flowers and leaves are made from wood, purchased in town.

 Horses are occasionally on the beach.  Not sure if they offer rides or not.

One day we were out and about and decided to have lunch.  This is a place called "Pollo Lucas" which means Crazy Chicken!!  Anyway, we had been here last year and really enjoyed it.

The entree on the menu is of course chicken.  You can get a whole chicken, half, or quarter.  All cooked over a large grill.

We got the half chicken and beans, rice and tortillas.  The bill came to around $12 for the two of us.  (Half chicken alone was 70 pesos = $3.50!!).  A favorite for sure.

We visited CEDO (Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans museum which is about 5 miles south of Puerto Penasco.  Their mission is to explore, understand, and protect the natural resources and cultures of the Sonoran Desert and the Sea of Cortez.  Unfortunately we did not get a picture of the facilities, but did get pictures of the surroundings (cactus as usual!).

This was primarily a gift shop on the premises.

Inside the main building we listened to a very informative talk by one of the Educational Staff.  There were several interesting paintings on the walls of the building.

This is a map of the area with the Sea of Cortez between the Baja and the mainland of Mexico.

The Sea of Cortez is a major tourism draw for both Northern Baja and Southern Baja. This incredible body of water is still somewhat unknown in the overall scope of  world destinations. Although it is well known to fishermen, scientists, conservationists, water sports enthusiasts, as well as recreational boaters, many in the world have no knowledge of this sea.

Biologically speaking, the Sea of Cortez is the richest body of water on our entire planet. This diverse sea supports more than 900 varieties of fish and more than 2,000 species of marine invertebrates. It is home to many species that exist only within its waters.
This picture shows the head of a fish - with the body it would have been about 6 feet long.

Outside they had a skeleton of a 55 ft. fin whale.

Pictures of the sunset on the beach.  Just incredible. You can pick which one you like the most.

What more can I say??

Puerto Penasco, MX

Well, we made it to MX on 2/9.  Beautiful scenery along the way.

Friends, Larry and Maureen, are ahead of us in their van and pulling their car.  Dave and Theresa are behind us in their Hitchhiker.

Made it to the border and crossed pretty much without incident.  The female guard at the Mexico checkpoint asked if we had liquor on board.  I said NO but she wanted to check the trailer so I got out and we walked around to the door.  I opened it and she went in and again asked for liquor.  I said NO.  She looked in the refrigerator (??) and asked about liquor one more time.  I shook my head no and that was it.

Judy took this picture just inside the border, and, no, this was not our RV Park!!

From the border it was another 50-60 miles to Puerto Penasco.

Finally made it to PP.  This is the street approaching the Sea of Cortez in the distance and the RV Park just to the right.

We ended up with a site in the park but not backed up to the beach like we had requested.  In Mexico they do things differently.  They take your deposit but they do not assign a site to you until you arrive.  In most cases, the beach front sites are always full and you have to wait until one opens up.
(We should be getting into one tomorrow (Saturday) as a couple of our friends have to leave tomorrow).

Beach views.

We meet up with the other 'Hitchhiker' couples each afternoon for Happy Hour at one of the beach sites.
At sunset, someone down the way rings a bell 3 times and between each bell ring, Murray (below) blows on his conch shell!!

On Saturday, the 11th, the Park had a free Fish Fry (and beer) for everyone. We all were at Dave and Theresa's RV and watched them fry the fish.

It was a great afternoon, about 75 degrees and sunny.  They had plenty of fish and beer for all!!

On Monday we all drove over to a place called "Dukes."  They have a special every day.  Monday is cheeseburger, fries, and drink for $5.  Very good food for the price.


Wednesday Judy and I drove into town to get some supplies.  On the way we saw this cow...

Notice the local Sams and then something called Bodega Aurrera which is actually a Walmart.  It doesn't look much like one inside but they do have "Great Value" products so we guess it probably is one.

For Valentines Day we all went to this restaurant for dinner.  We had a 6 o'clock reservation and had to place our orders a couple of days early.

This is Randy and Sharon.

Jeff and Susan.

Larry and Maureen.

Dave and Theresa.

Murray and Shelly.

And yours truly.

Judy had the double lobster plate (what else??).

And I had the steak plate.  The meat was so tender you could almost cut it with your fork.

Dessert.

This was our bill for the dinner.  They take credit cards as well as cash.
(980 pesos divided by $51.50 equals 19.03 pesos per dollar).  Not bad for two lobsters, steak, a margarita, and two beers.

Just threw this one in - one of many beautiful sunsets.

On Wednesday 4 of us went out fishing in this boat.

We went out about 4 miles.  This view back to land is the RV Park.  Hard to see but you can see the backs of RV's to the left of center.

We were a little concerned at first because our captain caught about 4 fish before any of us had a bite!!  But he was casting whereas we were just dropping our lines into the water.
We caught alot of smaller fish - sometimes two at a time since we had double hooks on our line.
This was sea bass that I caught.

All the fish caught went into this bucket.  As you can see it is almost full.  The one on top is a trigger fish.  We had a lot of those.

All in all, it was a good day.  The water was quite choppy at first but settled down after a couple of hours.  The captain cleaned the fish before we headed back to the docks, and, Randy separated them and gave each of us a bag of fillets.  We each got about 1 1/2 lbs of fish.

Which brings us to today, Friday, and we are all pretty much hunkered down for the big storm.  Sunny today but extremely windy - 25-30 MPH (with some gusts as high as 50) so the trailer is rocking some.  The seas are rough:

But we are protected by the trailers along side us.  Tomorrow we are supposed to get rain with the winds so that should be interesting!!  Tomorrow we are supposed to move to a beach site so we will see how that goes!!