Tuesday May 10, 2011

On Tuesday we decided to go to Medano Beach. We picked up Natalya, Stacey and Amanda at their hotel and then drove back to the beach. Stacey rented an umbrella because she was a little tired of the sun all day and I started negotiating a deal for paddle boarding. The beach had the best sand and was so nice and flat. We started out swimming and I found someone who would rent us paddle boards for the price I wanted. At first Natalya and Amanda were quite worried about the water but soon they acted like they had been to the beach all the time.
I have never been paddle boarding before but it looked like fun and I wanted to try. After two minutes of broken English instruction we went out on the paddle boards. Obviously we didn't really know what we were doing. To add to that there were tons of jet skis and boats coming in and out and a very still wind. It took us awhile to get the hang of it but I loved it anyways.
First we tried on their knees.
Eventually we learned how to stand up and went back forth between paddle boarding on our knees and standing up. I really enjoyed it.
Amanda enjoyed playing the water and the sand while we were paddle boarding.
We got hungry and decided to walk down the beach to the Office which is a famous Cabo place to eat. We walked all the way down there and it kept getting louder and more obnoxious as we went. I do not need the party crowd and was happy that by staying a little ways out I could stay away from the party places and enjoy my peace and quiet. We finally got to the office and decided to look at a menu before sitting down to eat. 3 Tacos cost 240 pesos, roughly 20 dollars. This seemed outrageous to us and so we started walking back the way we had come. After a while we walked into another restaurant. 3 tacos were 130 pesos roughly 12.50 or so. We decided to keep walking. We got back to the restaurant right by our umbrella and 3 tacos were 850 pesos or about 8 dollars. We ate there. It was nice to eat under the umbrellas in the sand. Stacey and I shared a hamburger because we were a little tired of Mexican food for a few minutes. I thought it was wonderful.
After the beach we dropped Natalya off and then went to buy some stuff for dinner. Amanda came back to our house with us. We bought stuff to make mango salsa and qesadillas for dinner as we were a little tired of buying food. We bought some kind of mexican cheese that had a name something like barfar cheese. We kept calling it barf cheese and making Amanda laugh. We enjoyed an afternoon just messing around and being lazy. We came back to the hotel around 8:00 but Dad and Natalya weren't back from their dinner so we decided to go down to the beach and look at the waves.

The waves were very big and we enjoyed looking at them. When we got back to the hotel room we found out that dad had not caught any fish. He had fun getting free food at Captain Tony's for dinner and had fun when they hung up his tee shirts at the restaurant.

Monday May 09, 2011

Monday morning began very early. We met at the Finestera at 5:30 am and had a quick brunch. We were under the impression that we had to be on the Oceania Boat by 6:00 am and so we walked down to the dock and got on in the dark. This boat was the one to take us out to the shot gun start for the tournament and it also took on a tour of lands end.


Then the boat left the dock without picking up anyone. We were a little confused and wondered if we would be the only ones on the boat. It ended up taking us through the harbor to pick up everyone else who didn't have to wake up quite so early and who got to load in the day light.
This is a picture of the pirate ship they had that goes out and takes people scuba diving for lots of money to the same beach we drove to and snorkeled at for free.


We had an armed escort because the Mayor of Cabo and the Governor of the state were both on the boat.
Here are all the fishing boats ready to start but still sitting in the water. Everything was still.
These guys had little flare guns and had a false start but then they were finally able to pull the triggers. Never depend on them to protect you in a real gun fight.
Here are the boats after the shot gun start.


On our way back in there was an entire pod of 200 plus dolphins. We got to see them for about 20 minutes or so.
Here is the arch at lands end.
We had planned to go to Cabo Pulmo. But we were on the boat longer than expected and then found out that everyone was not completely ready for the long trip. By the time we all got ready it was after 10:00 am and we decided we didn't have time to go that far. Instead we decided to go to Bahia Santa Maria. It is a beautiful cove with snorkeling on one side. We spend a few hours there until our feet hurt, our eyes stung with salt water and we were water logged. I love the feeling of staying in the ocean until I am actually sick of the water. Apparently we didn't get an snorkeling pictures here. Not sure what happened because we did take some.
We went back to our room and showered and took naps outside under the shade. We also saw the iguana. Then we headed back to the Finestera to see how Dad did and see if they all wanted to go to dinner.
Dad caught 5 tuna but none of them were big enough for the tournament. They kept one (22 pounds, the others went to the captain of the boat) and brought it to eat. We went to Captain Tony's because Dad didn't want to walk far. We had them cook it up along with some other meals. We were a little annoyed that they told us we would need other food too because the tuna was more than enough for all of us (9 people.)

What a perfect beach day!

Sunday May 08, 2011

The first thing we did Sunday Morning was eat our muffins outside on the roof. It was so relaxing. Then we got ready and went to church. I loved going to church down there. I felt the spirit speaking to me strongly when the words couldn't and can honestly say it was a very spiritual experience for me.

After that we met everyone at the Finestera. The reason that we went to Cabo was because my dad was in the IGF World Championship fishing tournament for Marlin. We just went to support and enjoy a vacation. They handed out things to the fishermen and had a casting contest. Team Just Keep Fishing was in the top for awhile but someone caught the marlin twice.

This is the waterfall they had at the finestera. This is Team Just Keep Fishing!
We then proceeded to spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon in the pool. We went swimming. It took the three sisters plus Holly to take down my brother, David, but we did manage to dunk him. We enjoyed nachos at the pool side bar and then decided to walk down to the

This is a picture of Cameron in his reef safe shirt. Team Just Keep Fishing was sponsored by Reef Safe sun screen and they gave us all tee shirts and lots of sun screen. We loved the sun screen and after sun care products and it was nice knowing that the products weren't hurting the fish either.


This is a picture of the yacht that I am going to buy to come back to Cabo with next year.
We decided to go back to our room for a nap because a nap is always nice on vacation. Later we met Stacey for dinner. Team Just Keep Fishing had a nice dinner to go to but it was too upscale (expensive) for our simple tastes and we decided to sample more of Cabo's finest establishments. We were supposed to meet Samantha, Holly, Lauren and Trevor at the Crazy Lobster. We had promised the guy we would come and eat there last night. When we got there they weren't there and we waited eventually deciding just to eat. Little did we know that they were at the Crazy Lobster eating and that there were two at the city.

We enjoyed more shrimp and lobster. Do you notice a theme here? I liked it once again but did not especially think it was the best place we ate at all week. We did enjoy some funny Mexican t.v. that was like Star Search with little kids dancing and singing.
This is a picture of us checking out the catamaran that I want to go along with the yacht. It was pretty all lit up.


The only thing that Mexico is lacking is desserts. There are not even any on the menu. When we got back to the Finestera Amanda had a million little desserts she had snuck out of the buffet they had to try. They helped our need for sweets.

Cabo San Lucas

I have been home from Cabo San Lucas for almost a week but my heart is still there. I think I will be returning. There is something to be said for going to a different country, eating their food, fumbling while speaking their language and enjoying the beautiful settings they had. We got an early start Saturday morning at 4:30 am when our alarm went off. I did not mind because we were going on vacation. We left gray, foggy skies behind on a plane that left on time bound for a party place. Going to a party location makes the plane a lot more fun than usual.

We got to the rental car location quickly and without too much problems. The locals like to try and get you to go to their timeshare location but we just plowed through them and got our rental car. Soon we were on the road. We chose to take the toll road which does not go through San Jose Del Cabo which was a great decision. Our drive to Cabo was along the coastal shore and we saw tons of beautiful beaches as we were driving.

We stopped at Costco for lunch and for a few things we needed, mainly water and muffins for breakfast. Then we found our house we were staying at. The house is in El Tezal. Eat me Lures

gave the room to my dad as a prize for winning one of his fishing tournaments and he gave it to us since he chose to stay elsewhere. I was very impressed with the location and the place.
We could see the ocean quite well from the roof top area and enjoyed waking up each morning to eat our muffins on the roof with the gentle breeze. We could also see how many cruise ships were going to be in port each day.




Cameron and I enjoyed a nap to recover from our plane ride and then went to the Finestera to meet My Dad, Natalya, Stacey, and Amanda. We planned to go to a place called the Shrimp House but could not find it and finally gave up. We instead ended up at a little place called the Pescador. In Cabo all the restaurants are open and there is no air conditioning. At first this bugged me a little and I thought it hot but by the time we came home I found the load noise and cold air conditioning of our restaurants to be much more annoying.

We ordered shrimp, lobster and fish to share between Cameron, Stacey and I. I am not a fan of sea food but since that is what there is in Cabo I decided to be a brave partaker. I was amazed by how good everything was. I loved it all! I can not imagine what made me not love seafood. Maybe it was the way they brought the shrimp right to the restaurant same day?

This is Cameron's, "What happens in Cabo, Stays in Cabo" face. It is a virgin drink.
Here we are outside the little restaurant.
We enjoyed our walk home around the harbor and saw the biggest catamoran pull into port. The weather was perfect!

This is the view from one side of my dad's hotel. He stayed right near the port and we enjoyed his views each day and we met for dinner.

Just looking at the pictures makes me miss Cabo. I think I need to be planning a vacation to go back soon! I hope my dad wins to go down there again!