"Bat" Rays Jumping

"Bat" Rays Jumping

As I mentioned in the previous post this morning, I have been trying to get a photo of the "bat" rays jumping. I decided to try using the video mode on the camera and was a little more successful. If you have the patience to watch this poor video you will see 3 bat rays jump.

dscn1324.mov

Birds, Boats and Bugs

Birds, Boats and Bugs

We haven't been doing too much except hanging out relaxing. We went into town yesterday and had breakfast with the group from our homeowners church. Did a little visiting and then went for groceries.

Yesterday was a bad day for the wildlife here, two of the four cats came home with catches. One had a bird and one had a lizard. I know that this is instinctive behavior for them and that there is nothing that we can do about it; but that doesn't stop us from wishing that they wouldn't do it.

There are lots of birds around here, along with lots of bugs, which for me means lots of mosquito bites. UGH!! I have been bitten more here than in a whole year in Guaymas.

Here is a picture of a pretty red bird that looks somewhat like a cardinal to me.

The other day a large boat passed by on its way somewhere. As you can see it is a fair size.

I have been trying to get a picture of the bat rays when they jump out of the water; but so far haven't been successful. They are up and down so quick it is hard to catch them, and of course they don't jump in the same place twice.

We are getting closer to going home, 16 days left here before we head back to Guaymas.

Plants In Bloom

Plants In Bloom

There are lots of plants blooming here right now. There are the usual bouganvillea, plumeria, hibiscus, etc.. Here are some photos of various cactus, etc. that are in bloom at the moment.

Close up of the above bloom.

Agave bloom, approx. 20 feet tall.

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day

Here is wishing a Happy Fathers Day to all the fathers. Neither one of us has our dad here in body any longer; but they are certainly with us in memory.

This morning we saw a fox run across the driveway. He was very pretty with a grey upper body and kind of a redish underbody. Naturally, I didn't have the camera in my hand, so didn't get a shot of him. A little while later he again crossed the driveway heading in the other direction. Wonder if he is hunting for our resident rabbit? Lots of lizard type creatures running all over, and also many varieties of birds. After dark the bats come out and if we can't see them we hear them squeaking to each other.

Looking For A Peaceful Place?

Looking For A Peaceful Place?

One of the blogs that I read quite often had an interesting piece today. La Gringa from Honduras, http://lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com/ . She writes about the findings of the latest Global Peace Index, http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-30-2007/0004598231&EDATE= it is interesting reading and I suggest that you go and read it. They rate countries by various criteria, which I won't copy here; as they are all in the article above.

They rated 121 countries and here is the list:

121 GPI rankings

Countries most at peace ranked first


Rank Country Score
1 Norway 1.357
2 New Zealand 1.363
3 Denmark 1.377
4 Ireland 1.396
5 Japan 1.413
6 Finland 1.447
7 Sweden 1.478
8 Canada 1.481
9 Portugal 1.481
10 Austria 1.483
11 Belgium 1.498
12 Germany 1.523
13 Czech Republic 1.524
14 Switzerland 1.526
15 Slovenia 1.539
16 Chile 1.568
17 Slovakia 1.571
18 Hungary 1.575
19 Bhutan 1.611
20 Netherlands 1.620
21 Spain 1.633
22 Oman 1.641
23 Hong Kong 1.657
24 Uruguay 1.661
25 Australia 1.664
26 Romania 1.682
27 Poland 1.683
28 Estonia 1.684
29 Singapore 1.692
30 Qatar 1.702
31 Costa Rica 1.702
32 South Korea 1.719
33 Italy 1.724
34 France 1.729
35 Vietnam 1.729
36 Taiwan 1.731
37 Malaysia 1.744
38 United Arab
Emirates 1.747
39 Tunisia 1.762
40 Ghana 1.765
41 Madagascar 1.766
42 Botswana 1.786
43 Lithuania 1.788
44 Greece 1.791
45 Panama 1.798
46 Kuwait 1.818
47 Latvia 1.848
48 Morocco 1.893
49 United Kingdom 1.898
50 Mozambique 1.909
51 Cyprus 1.915
52 Argentina 1.923
53 Zambia 1.930
54 Bulgaria 1.936
55 Paraguay 1.946
56 Gabon 1.952
57 Tanzania 1.966
58 Libya 1.967
59 Cuba 1.968
60 China 1.980
61 Kazakhstan 1.995
62 Bahrain 1.995
63 Jordan 1.997
64 Namibia 2.003
65 Senegal 2.017
66 Nicaragua 2.020
67 Croatia 2.030
68 Malawi 2.038
69 Bolivia 2.052
70 Peru 2.056
71 Equatorial
Guinea 2.059
72 Moldova 2.059
73 Egypt 2.068
74 Dominican
Republic 2.071
75 Bosnia and
Herzegovina 2.089
76 Cameroon 2.093
77 Syria 2.106
78 Indonesia 2.111
79 Mexico 2.125
80 Ukraine 2.150
81 Jamaica 2.164
82 Macedonia 2.170
83 Brazil 2.173
84 Serbia 2.181
85 Cambodia 2.197
86 Bangladesh 2.219
87 Ecuador 2.219
88 Papua New
Guinea 2.223
89 El Salvador 2.244
90 Saudi Arabia 2.246
91 Kenya 2.258
92 Turkey 2.272
93 Guatemala 2.285
94 Trinidad and
Tobago 2.286
95 Yemen 2.309
96 United States
of America 2.317
97 Iran 2.320
98 Honduras 2.390
99 South Africa 2.399
100 Philippines 2.428
101 Azerbaijan 2.448
102 Venezuela 2.453
103 Ethiopia 2.479
104 Uganda 2.489
105 Thailand 2.491
106 Zimbabwe 2.495
107 Algeria 2.503
108 Myanmar 2.524
109 India 2.530
110 Uzbekistan 2.542
111 Sri Lanka 2.575
112 Angola 2.587
113 Cote d'Ivoire 2.638
114 Lebanon 2.662
115 Pakistan 2.697
116 Colombia 2.770
117 Nigeria 2.898
118 Russia 2.903
119 Israel 3.033
120 Sudan 3.182
121 Iraq 3.437

Palmtrees??

Palmtrees??

Yesterday when we went to town I remembered to take the camera. There are a couple of special palmtrees that I wanted to take a picture of. The first 2 or 3 times that we were in town I didn't even notice these 2 trees, they blend into the landscape very well. They are actually some kind of communication towers, I think they may belong to Telmex; but I am not positive. Whoever came up with the idea of disguising the towers as palmtrees was really thinking. They are much more attractive and less intrusive than regular towers.

2 towers in the center of the photo.

Close up of the 2 towers.

There is some construction on one of the streets in town, so we decided to take a detour just in case there was fresh oil on that street. One of the streets that we detoured down took us right past the cemetary, so I took a couple of pictures of it.

Frustrating The Birds

Frustrating The Birds

This morning while we were drinking our morning coffee outside, we noticed a bird starting to build a nest in one of the light fixtures. We decided that this was not a good idea, so Roy laid an old towel over the top of the fixture. When momma bird returned with some twigs to add to the nest, she was dumbfounded. She checked the whole thing out and flew around checking to make sure that she couldn't get in. She then checked out the fixture on the opposite side of the door, so we will have to keep an eye on that one to make sure she doesn't start all over again. She was one frustrated little bird.









This is a photo of a little gecko thing that seems to have made his home in the outdoor sink. He has been there for several days now, obviously the cats haven't seen him yet.

Sunset

Sunset

It was a cloudy day yesterday and the sunset was pretty.

We are just hanging out, relaxing.

Roy saw one of the cats playing with a snake that was about 2 1/2 to 3 feet long the other day. I didn't see that and can't say that I am sorry to have missed it.

Cats

Cats

Here are 3 of our 4 charges, the other one spends the night outside. It is she who is the hunter, or maybe I should say, that it is she who brings her catches home.

We went into town yesterday, had some lunch and did our shopping. They are working on one of the streets in town, it certainly needed it. Both of the roads from here into town are getting rougher, the gravel trucks are constantly running back and forth from town and the roads are showing the wear. We noticed a big difference on both of them in just 4 days. The gravel road has lots of big rocks sticking up on it and is like driving over a washboard. The paved road now has lots of patches of gravel on it, I guess the asphalt is just not made for those heavy loads.
Not long after we arrived home we had visitors. They had been out to see a friend who is building a home a few miles from here and stopped in to visit. They also housesat here at one time. We visited for an hour or so before they headed home.

Los Barriles (The Barrels)

Los Barriles (The Barrels)

Los Barriles or in english, The Barrels, was apparently so named because years ago the ships would dock here to fill their water barrels with fresh water. At the entrance to the town they have a very nice arrangement of barrels turned into water fountains.

There are trees growing here that the locals call, "elephant trees". I have not seen these around Guaymas area. They are interesting to look at; although at the moment most of them have no leaves. They have arthritic looking branches growing in every possible direction over and under each other. The bark peels and discloses a bright green underlay. There are many of them growing all over and once it rains they will leaf out.

Some Photos

Some Photos

May was a "blue moon" month, or at least where we are. It was lovely here with it shining brightly across the water. This one I took this morning at sunrise.


I took some photos of the sunrise this morning.




Venezia with her latest catch, yesterday. She separated the tail from the body at first, and while the tail lay twitching, she kept on chasing the body. It led her on a merry chase and she had fun playing with it. Rather disgusting and gross to watch; but normal cat behavior.

Hurricane Shutters

Hurricane Shutters

Yesterday morning we were just sitting around when a truck drove up to the gate. It turned out that it was the crew that were coming to install hurricane shutters to the house. They were supposed to email before they came so that we could make sure and be home. They hadn't emailed; but we were home so it didn't really matter. They spent all day doing the installation and did a good job. We did some chatting with the boss and found out that he has been doing this for 18 yrs. and is originally from Toluca, Mexico. He told us that some of his buddies go over to Hermosillo to pick grapes during the season. We swapped information about here and Guaymas, while he was on a break. They went into town for lunch, so we didn't have to feed them. They work out of Los Cabos and have 2 days work up here this time. He said that sometimes they camp in an arroyo and cook fish that they have caught; but this time they are staying in town.

We saw the whales again this morning and Venezia caught herself another lizard of some type. She has caught 3 or 4 that we know about and they have all been different varieties.

We went into town, had some lunch, found the bus station and got information for our trip home. I think that we will bus all the way to Santa Rosalia from here, (approx. 654 kms.) and then take the ferry straight home to Guaymas. We will spend a night and day in Santa Rosalia looking around.