Colorful Boats at Caye Caulker

Colorful Boats at Caye Caulker, originally uploaded by Captain DJ.

There is a good story to tell about this boat...I have a large print hanging in my den. If you ever want to hear the story, just ask...or if somebody comments and asks, then I will write it and post it here.

Ranguana Caye, Belize

Ranguana Caye, Belize, originally uploaded by Captain DJ.

Testing my old ability to blog post straight from Flickr...

The Palo Blanco property owners have made counter offers

The fact that they made counter offers is a nice way of saying that they turned down or declined my offers. Is it meant to be? Here are the houses again for review:

Casa # 4 came down nearly 6% from the most current asking price, but are still nearly 8% higher than our written offer.







Casa # 6 came down nearly 13% from current asking price but still are 25% higher than our written offer.

My friend's Brother set Four World Records Yesterday

Yesterday was a party that I hated to miss. Reid Stowe completed his 1000 days aboard a boat that he built himself, schooner Anne, and never took on supplies or got off the boat or pulled into a harbor. One Thousand continuous days at Sea.....what a voyage.
Congratulations Reid !!! Check it out at www.1000days.net

A Life without too much "Sin Tax"

While shopping for a week's worth of food, I was not only amazed at the variety and value, but also by the absence of "Sin Tax". What I mean by this is that alcohol and cigarettes are considerably cheaper than what I am used to. From buying cartons of Marlboro Lights at Costco for around $15 to getting liters of Bacardi for $10 or less at the grocery store, it just impressed me how much we are taxed for these types of items back at home.

Maybe I got a little carried away with my Rum purchases.....but for $9 per liter...can you blame me? It was the holidays and we had a lot to celebrate.

Grocery Shopping in Los Cabos

What an assortment of fresh fish to choose from. The seafood department at this local grocery store in San Jose del Cabo was easily ten to twenty times larger and more diverse than anything I have experienced in the United States. Is it because they are located near the best fishing areas left on the planet? or is it because the people that live and shop there really know how to prepare and enjoy great seafood (Mariscos)? My guess is that it is a bit of both......


Peppers, peppers and more peppers,... God knows I love peppers, or chilis as they are called in Mexico. More colorful fruits and vegetables create better overall nutritional health . Nowhere in the great state of Alabama have I ever shopped for food at a place that offered so many choices. And most of the choices seemed to me to be more natural and organic than the big corporate food stuffs that we are offered here in the USA.

Baja Micro-Brewery

Our Glasses are surely more than half-full. Believe it or not Cheri took this photo when we were at the Micro-Brewery in San Jose del Cabo...then we realized that there was another location in Cabo San Lucas for this establishment. It was at the top floor of the resort we were staying at Cabo Villas. This top floor brewery/restaurant/bar probably has the best views in all of Cabo San Lucas,(and that is saying a lot!). Cheri was drinking the dark beer called ESCORPION NEGRO, and I was drinking the lighter ale, called Baja Blonde.



This place had great food and great entertainment. It should definitely not be over-looked. These goofy cartoon maps will show you where both locations are...and I recommend enjoying both. The atmosphere is totally different....kind of like the differences between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo just 18 miles up the road.
Tell 'em DJ and Cheri sent you....and they will likely say-"?Dice Que?, Gringos Locos???" or maybe not.

A Fog Desert - One of only Three in the World

The strongest influence on the temperature of Baja California is the dissimilarity of its surrounding bodies of water. The Pacific Ocean dominates the temperature regime of western Baja California with its south-flowing, cold California Current, which is responsible for the coastal advection fog (Shreve 1951) and cloud cover that, with steady onshore breezes, keep the coastal temperatures relatively low. In consequence, the west coast of Baja California, from approximately El Rosario south to Todos Santos, is a cool coastal desert that Humphrey (1974) referred to as the Pacific Coastal Desert. In fact, the northern portion of this area, south to Punta Eugenia and inland 6 to 10 km, is one of only three fog deserts in the world (Meigs 1966). Its fogginess results from warm, moist belts of air cooling as they descend and contact the cold surface waters of the California Current. As this air cools, its moisture forms fog near the surface of the water and is carried inland by continuous onshore breezes. The California Current is submerged beneath the north-flowing, slightly warmer Davidson Current in the vicinity of Bahía Magdalena during the fall. Here, along the Magdalena Plain, the Pacific Ocean also influences the climate of the peninsula, although cloud cover is less and annual mean temperatures are slightly higher (Hastings and Turner 1969).

The temperature of the southern and eastern portions of Baja California is controlled primarily by the Sea of Cortés. A much warmer body of water than the Pacific (Robinson 1973), the Sea of Cortés offers little amelioration to the peninsula in the form of precipitation or cooling. The areas east of the Peninsular Ranges receive no cooling from onshore Pacific breezes, and consequently the Gulf coast becomes extremely hot during the summer (Markham 1972).

The Loop Driving Route that we Enjoyed

Cabo Loop Baja California South Mexico

An interactive road map of Baja California Mexico with camping, RV, golf and other points of interest

La Paz, Todo Santos, Cabo San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo, Los Barriles

Click on any area you wish to explore

Saving the Sea Turtles

These babies would have died...they had all but given up. Then when they got wet, they swam their little fins off.

Casa Angel in Palo Blanco Hacienda

Casa Angel

This one is the one that Cheri found, and boy am I glad she did. It will probably not stay on the market long, we ARE going to make an offer on this one right away. When I say right away, I mean within a week or two. It is such a charmer that I am a little bit hesitant to post too much information about it. The last thing we need is to get a bunch of other potential buyers interested. But instead of telling the price and exact location, I will tell you what we like about it.

This house is charming, like San Miguel de Allende charming. It even has doors and windows that were purchased in SMA and Guanajuato incorporated into every room. It is two bedroom, two full bathrooms, Living room, kitchen, private courtyard/terrace. It is in a compound with a total of three 2 bedroom houses and three 1 bedroom houses, all done in a variety of Spanish Colors and themes that are reminiscent of old colonial architecture meets top-shelf designer to the stars. The plants, trees, and walkways are fabulous. Off street parking for one vehicle and a shared pool, cabana and laundry room. A very fair $275 H.O.A. fee takes care of gardener/groundskeeper, exterior maintenance (including doors and windows and roof), all water and electricity for pool. cabana and laundry room.

To top it all off- there is a collection of cool neighbors that only use their places as vacation homes, so I can envision a quiet compound all year long. And perhaps the best thing is that there is another two bedroom house for sale right next door. This one is my personal favorite, but the one next door comes fully furnished, has a balcony with a commanding view and a private garage/storage area and exclusive entrance to the compound. The other house is for sale by the architect/builders of the entire compound and is equally enchanting.

Casa Osborn

More Picture (click here)

Casa Osborn is the "fixer-upper" in the Southern part of San Jose del Cabo, right on the "Golden Corridor", meaning Mucho Traffico. It has great potential, a good bit of land and is quite possibly zoned for multi-use, which could come in very handy down the road. Currently the sellers are firm on their price of $315,000 and that is at the upper end of our budget, and leaves little cash reserves for a total make-over. It has been empty for at least a couple of years, but is built extremely well. The all concrete structure (with steel reinforcement) shows absolutely no cracks. The 8" thick walls, roof and foundation seem to be in tip top condition. This house is also the oldest, probably 20-25 years old. But the views are amazing!!! There is a nice cobblestone, steeeeep driveway and a carport for two small vehicles. It is fenced on two sides, and has approximately 15,000 sq. feet of land, (quite enough for a pool, cabana, and a guesthouse casita) . This could make a great office or business location with us living in the "planned casita"....

Who knows??? I am told by our trusted real estate agent that this one will still be available, (more than likely) later on and we can wait until April to make an offer that is more in-line with our real budget. I can see this being a project to be undertaken after we are successful in selling my shop in Historic Downtown Decatur, Alabama. Maybe next Spring or even the Spring of 2011.....

Christmas in Cabo

This Christmas and New Year's Eve was the first one we have spent in Cabo. Hopefully it will not be the last. I wanted to share this collage of pix from Christmas Day and write more about specific events during this trip. There will be many entries today; I wish I was this inspired to post entries to my work blog, but for now....writing about buying our dream house seems much more fun.

Bronze Sculptures at La Paz

La Paz (The Peace) the Port of Illusions,

We enjoyed our daytrip to the capital city of Baja Sur. Walking along the Malecon, walkway along the tranquil shores of the calm water harbor where so many cruisers have anchored or moored in gave us a great way to get to know this city. Having fresh shrimp tacos, prepared two totally different ways by a seaside vendor allowed us to taste the flavor of Mexico and complete the sensory extravaganza that was already overwhelming our senses. The drive from Cabo first up the East Coast and mountainous roads along the Sea of Cortes and then taking the more direct road home (already feeling at home in Cabo) along the Pacific Coastal road through Todos Santos, watching the sunset, was a great way to spend a long day.

This road trip alone deserves multiple blog entries. I can just imagine it now, telling about Buena Vista and Los Barrilles, budding sea side fishing villages. And then stopping at El Triumfo, a quaint colonial town before entering the metropolis that is La Paz. So many new Pacific Beaches and beach communities to share with you. It is hard to believe that so many "Life-Experiences" can be taken in in just one day.

Diving in the Southern Baja

The best snorkeling and diving is up in Cabo Pulmo, home to the only living coral reef on the west coast of Mexico. You can drive 10 minutes north to get there, or you can use the aluminum boats or sea kayaks at Villa Los Frailes. We had some great snorkeling at Mermaid Bay (Playa La Serrita on the map). This bay was about a 15 minute boat ride from the villa. There we observed eel, turtles, various puffer fish, schools of Barracuda, and numerous other kinds of tropical fish. Visibility was about 50 ft. Water temperature was probably about 77 degrees. It was perfect with a 3mm wet suit, but you could get by with nothing. About half way between Cabo Pulmo and Villa Los Frailes is a sea lion colony. We took the aluminum boat their twice, once for snorkeling, and once for diving. The sea lions are extremely friendly. They seem excited when you come to swim with them. They are swimming all around you, blowing bubbles and barking in your face. Stay upwind of their rock if possible, because they smell pretty bad. We also dove El Isoltes off of the aluminum boat. This was a very nice dive, teaming with marine life. The usual tropicals were there, as were several large eels and an impressive vertical wall of coral. I highly recommend this dive. Just go down to about 70 feet and slowly circle your way back up to the surface. It couldn't be easier to navigate. Below are some pictures from the dives at the sea lion colony and Los Isoltes.

	The mellow one checking us out		strange fish		sea lion pups		unique orange fish		The playful pup
	Sleepy		sea lion bulls		The intimidator		blowing bubbles in our face		Snorkeling with sea lions
	Angel fish		The sea lion dive also has fish		bigger fish at the island		beautiful coral		Eel with octopus leg on it's nose
	rock fish		colorful groupers		Flame angel standing out in a crowd		porcuipine puffer hiding
	puffer		lots of caves for hiding		Cabo Pulmo Divers boat dive		Sea lion cruising the reef

In addition to diving on our own, there are three dive shops in Cabo Pulmo that you can choose from if guided diving is more your cup of tea. All the diving is from pangas which are basic fiberglass boats with outboard motors. Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort has a dive shop. This is where we rented our tanks from. Rafael was extremely helpful telling us where to dive and anything else you needed to know about the area. Unfortunately we didn't get the opportunity to dive with them. Our one experience with boat diving was with Cabo Pulmo Divers. We booked a two tank morning dive on a moderately windy day. The guide was sick, so we opted to just dive on our own with pre-dive briefings. The seas were very rough. Our first dive was at El Bajo De Los Meros. This reef is the most northeasterly dive on the map above. Is a reef at a depth of about 65'. It's about 35' wide and 300' long. There are several cracks, crevices and overhangs that support all sorts of marine life and coral. There were huge grouper and pargo hanging out on the fringes of the reef. The highlight was probably the schools of porcupine puffers. I have never seen porcupine puffers in schools out in the open like this. They were everywhere, and they were just hovering in place, right out in the open. Visibility was only about 30 ft. The swells got the best of us on our surface interval, and we weren't feeling too good before the 2nd dive. The 2nd dive was at El Cantil. This reef structure was more varied than our first dive, with small canyons everywhere. The coral on this dive was more impressive than at El Bajo. Unfortunately, the air was not too good. We both felt a little nauseous about 15 minutes into the dive and decided to go up a little early with about 1200 lbs left over. We didn't feel too good the whole way in to shore. The people at Cabo Pulmo Divers were very nice, but the bad air wasn't very pleasant. Give Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort a try. The other dive shop was Pepe's Dive Shop. They are supposedly top notch, unfortunately Pepe was out of town during our stay.

	Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort dive shop		Cabo Pulmo Divers		Pepe's Dive Shop		Typical panga. Most do not have shade cover.