Going Under

We went for a sunrise scuba dive south of Ensenada Blanca with our friends Nancy and Chris from El Santuario. We loaded up kayaks with tanks and gear and paddled south along the coast to a secluded beach surrounded by cliffs. After a short refresher and equipment check, Nancy and I descended right next to a beautiful painted moray eel. We saw lots of reef fish: jacks, angels, triggers, damsels, and the largest parrot fish I've ever seen.

Arnoud and Chris went second and Chris swears he saw a reef shark, but Arnoud missed it. Humphrey didn't get to go, but he enjoyed the kayak ride! It was a beautiful morning and so much fun to get back under the surface.



Now we've moved south of La Paz to a bay called La Ventana which, as you might expect from the name, is famous for it's wind. It's a huge campground that is taken over by windsurfers and kiteboarders from December to March. It's not quite as remote as our last camp, but there's a lot more to do.



On Arnoud's first day back on his windsurf board, he snapped his mast in half way out. After an hour and a half of swimming, a kiteboarder finally took pity on him and dragged him to shore. In gratitude, I decided to learn kiteboarding. Watch out sunbathers, I'm coming and I've got a 9 meter kite strapped to my waist!



I've been taking lessons with Nat Lincoln from Edge Kiteboarding School. After a lot of theory and practice on shore with a little training kite, I finally got to go in the water yesterday, although I didn't get to take my board. I started up on the north side of the bay and dragged myself all the way south (about 3/4 of a mile) using a 6 meter kite. It was a lot of fun, although there's still water dripping out of my nose 24 hours later.

Arnoud's been a bit quicker with picking up the sport (darn him!) and took out a board yesterday. After a couple of mishaps and unintentional kite loops, he managed to stand up -- only to fall right back down... I would have laughed a little evil laugh to see that, but I was busy "tea bagging" my way down the bay (and no, you dirty people, not that kind of tea bagging!)



Humphrey, mean while, has learned a new sport too; he's finally mastered fetch and wants to practice all the time.

Other than our new extreme sports, we're practicing mostly relaxed activities. We bought a paddle and put my huge windsurf board to better use as a stand up paddle board for dawn balancing acts(photos soon.) Arnoud's been making lots of beautiful rock piles. And of course sunset is a spectator sport.