Fish!

Here a fish, there a fish, everywhere a fish, fish

I didn’t have a submersible camera, so my fish photos didn’t get much better than this on the snorkeling excursion we took to a bay south of Puerta Vallarta.  If I had such a camera, you would be looking at a photo of the hammerhead shark I saw lazily swimming along the bottom beneath all the mostly-oblivious tourists splashing on the surface.

I’m going to get a little crazy today with my photo postings, but I’m sorta making up for missing yesterday, so humor me.  I took all these photos near Puerta Vallarta.  We are acquainted with none of the people in any of these photos, and although I’ve always wanted to parasail, I chickened out of partaking of this pastime. Actually, the way the vendedores were driving the tow boat around other boats both moored and moving near the beach, I judged it much, much safer to stay on the ground.  Still, it was fascinating to watch, so I’m including a number of shots here.

Well, without further ado (what is ado, anyway, and why aren’t we having any further of it?), here’s a veritable vacation vignette for you:

Rocky shore near snorkling area

Snorklers from a different tour

Kayakers from another tour

Parasail launch from the beach

Parasail after launch

Your photo with an iguana, lady?

One lady moved at the wrong time and broke her leg when her launch hit the beach.  There were no doctors in this little cove, and no access by land — only by sea, and it was more than an hour’s boat ride back to Puerta Vallarta. 

I was in the first launch to attempt the landing, and the skipper tried to run up to the beach stern-first by lifting the motor at the appropriate time.  There was a terrific undertow, and when I stepped out of the boat, I would have been pulled completely under had not two of the crew grabbed me.  My pants were soaked, my sandals filled with coarse sand, and my camera bag was immersed.  Fortunately, the seawater didn’t have time to soak through the bag and, as you can see, my camera still worked.  After that, all the launches were run onto the beach bow-first at high speed and at a shallow angle to the beach.

The parasail tow boat had to dodge all the craft you see in the water and quite a few more of them you can’t see.  But I’m sure the hazards I’ve mentioned here have nothing to do with why some cruise ships will no longer dock at Puerta Vallarta.

There were parasails operating in the open water, as you can see in the following photos, but we didn’t stray far from the cruise ship except to take the boat ride to the snorkeling area and “iguana” beach.  Why not?  Well, that’s another story.

Hey, lady, want to ride the parasail?

Hang on, we got you, lady!

A Netherlands ship, but our piece of America

Bon voyage!