Turtle Time!!!!!

Dinner last night-yum!

Joaquin

 

Bye friend-thanks for letting us take pictures of you.

Playa Manzanillo

Lunch

Stopped at the fish market to get some fresh fish for dinner

 

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Today I accomplished one of my “have to” activities for this trip.  We booked a boat tour with the guy who checked us into our cabana yesterday.  He said to give him 100 pesos and come back tomorrow morning and we would be able to go out with a guide for 2 hours for a total of 500 pesos ($42 US) and he guaranteed that we would see turtles and possibly dolphins as well as to stop and snorkel.  I didn’t really care about the dolphins but the Tortugas were at the top of my list and Jon likes to snorkel.

So, this morning we wake up and meet our guide Joaquin who doesn’t speak English but is barefoot and a local guy who is also a pearl diver-basically he’s the man.  We walk with him down to his boat and converse pretty well with him en Espanol about himself, the turtles, the area, and ourselves.  We wait on the beach for him to bring the boat in then we head out to sea. For me the anticipation was overwhelming because I love turtles so much.  It’s kind of like when you arrive at the airport in Halifax, Nova Scotia and you get really excited because you can get TimBits from Tim Hortons.  No, this is way more exciting, but comparable. We saw some dolphins on the way and I got a few great shots on them.

We kept heading out and I asked Jon how we are going to actually swim with the turtles because I know they don’t really hang out in big groups in one spot.  I’m also wondering how our guide is going to find them because there aren’t any markers out here.  Just as Jon is tell me not to worry because our guide is the man and he knows what to do, our guide without saying a word swiftly jumps out of the boat while it is moving and starts swimming away.  I’m like, “Holy crap, who’s driving the boat?”  Well, it turns out that our guide spotted a turtle and went to get him with a rope tied to him from the boat.  He didn’t catch this specific turtle but he caught the next one and I was fully prepared to jump in with my snorkel gear and underwater camera at that point.

We swam over to the turtle and we both got a chance to hold and touch it.  I got a few underwater pictures before the guide told us to swim back to the boat.  I was fully satisfied then because I didn’t think I would be able to touch the turtle at all, certainly not in the US.  When we got back to the boat, however, I found out that our guide had brought the turtle with him and he hoisted it up on the boat so that we could examine, touch and get pictures of her with my nice camera.  Our guide told us that seven of the eight species of turtle that exist were found in these waters.  Jon and I deduced that this female was a Green Sea Turtle.  Joaquin said she was a Goldifina (I think), and we weren’t sure what this meant. 

Now, at that point, we had surpassed all of my expectations for this tour.  I was thinking the whole time about how we would never be have been able to do this in the US.  I remember the time that the Barrier Island crew went on our trip to Crystal River, FL to swim with the manatees and we were told left and right not to harass the manatees.  Not that we were harassing this turtle, but wow. 

Next, the guide took us to a boat or hotel only access beach called Playa Manzallio where his half brother Carlos has a Palapa restaurant and speaks English.  We discussed with Joaquin to pick us up again in the boat in 3 hours and we stayed to snorkel and have some lunch.  The snorkeling was very good with tons of pescado (fish).  We had fresh fish tacos for lunch and just relaxed on this very tranquillo playa.  Joaquin picked us up when expected and he had his little 4 year old daughter Guadelupe with him and she was very cute.  He brought us back to town and we bought some fresh mahi mahi filets from the pescador’s esposa for dinner tonight.  We had intended to leave today but since we had such a nice time we decide to stay for another night in our cabana here in Puerto Escondido.  I recommend this place for a visit if you are into the beaches that are low key with lots of activities and no high rise resorts or McDonalds.  Muy bonita.