Scuba Diving in Mexico

We wanted to get in some scuba diving while we were in Mexico. We took our own gear with us because rental gear isn't always the best (which is a safety issue). Although the better diving is probably on the Caribbean side, we didn't want to drive that far so we stuck to the Pacific side. One of our favorite dive areas is the Sea of Cortez near Baja Mexico and we hoped there would be some similarities.

The first place we tried was Zihuatenejo. Although the young staff at the Zihuatenejo Dive Center were friendly and helpful, I was a little concerned when the dive master didn't know what a nudibranch was. Maybe it was just a language issue since he was from Germany. I didn't take my underwater camera the first day since I wanted to keep things simpler for the first dives. Unfortunately, that was the day we did shallow dives with little current, which would have been good for photography. Whereas the second day, when I did take my camera, the dives were deep with enough current to make holding still to take photographs almost impossible. Both days the visibility was quite bad, the worst we've encountered for quite a while. On the positive side, there was a lot more hard coral reef than I was expecting. There isn't much around Baja, and most of the reefs are on the Caribbean side. We did see a large seahorse on the first day. We've only ever seen tiny ones before so that was nice. It would have been nice to have my camera, although it wasn't in a very good spot to photograph. It was reddish and 4 or 5 inches long. I assume it was a Giant (or Pacific) Seahorse. We also saw a sea turtle, but with the low visibility it disappeared rapidly. We also saw a nice school of what they called "sardines".



Unfortunately, with the worst possible timing, I caught a cold right when we started diving. The second day of diving I knew I was coming down with something but I thought I could manage. Although I did ok with equalizing on the first dive, the second one gave me a massive sinus headache. After that I gave up on diving till my cold was over. Shelley went out again a third day without me. We had originally planned for four days of diving, but there weren't that many dive sites and the visibility was bad so we decided to move on.

A few days later in Manzanillo we hooked up with Octopus Garden Dive Center. We had chosen a hotel right close to the dive center (Hotelito Escondido - recommended). Although this area wasn't "downtown", it was right on the beach and had a good assortment of restaurants.

We saw five different kinds of eels, including a couple we hadn't seen before:









We only saw a few nudibranchs which I think were all Red-tipped Sea Goddesses. I only managed a decent photo of one. (It's less colorful than the one I photographed in Belize)



There were lots of stingrays around. I think most of them were Bullseye Round Stingrays like this one.



We also saw this Southern Banded Guitarfish. Guitarfish are sort of a cross between a stingray and a shark. I like the bright yellow spots.



Usually we only see one or two Moorish Idols at a time, so it was interesting to see this larger group. You can get an idea of the visibility from the background. There was a lot of swell at this point so I shot a bunch as I got pushed around and managed to get this one half decent shot.



Porcupinefish have such big eyes with interesting flecks in them. This one seemed curious about me.



I thought this was a different kind of boxfish, but it's just the male colors of the Spotted Boxfish. The females are just black with white spots. (And they can change sex and therefore coloring.)



Guineafowl Puffers also have two distinct colorings, either a similar black with white spots, or a golden phase (not connected to male/female in this case).



Scorpionfish are generally well camouflaged, but this one was almost impossible to see. I spotted one fin and figured out what it must be, but it was still almost impossible to actually see the fish.



We only saw a single fairly small lobster. I'm not sure if they are naturally uncommon here, or whether most of them have been caught.



I didn't see any Christmas Tree Worms, but there were lots of Feather Duster Worms of various colors.





The "tubes" you can see in the photo above were probably made by feather duster worms.

Given the poor visibility and the limited dive operations, we probably wouldn't bother diving in this area again. But we were still glad to have got out, and despite the conditions we saw quite a bit of stuff.

See also Shelley's post on our diving

See all 33 photos in this batch

Tortugario Ecologico

When we were navigating to Manzanillo, I noticed I had marked a location on Google Maps - Tortugario Ecologico, just south of Manzanillo. We had time, so we decided to stop and see what it was. It appears to be a combination of public displays, conservation, and research. The main subjects are sea turtles, american crocodiles, and green iguanas, as well as the lagoon and mangroves themselves.



Some of the turtles appeared injured. Possibly all of them were rescued? They might have been raising some of the juveniles to a larger size to have a better chance of surviving after release.



It's nice to be able to look at them close up. When we see turtles scuba diving, they're generally disappearing into the distance. Or at the least swimming around.



We only saw one juvenile crocodile. I love the eyes!



Humorously, a lizard (whiptail?) ran by the baby crocodile while I was taking photos.



There were also a couple of adult crocodiles. I get a kick out of their crooked teeth, and their lumpy skin. That juvenile has some growing to do!



There were some captive adult iguanas. Apparently they catch the females when they are likely to be carrying eggs. Then they can recover the eggs after they are laid, and raise the baby iguanas to a bigger size before releasing them. The helps their survival rate since the young are the most vulnerable.



After wandering the exhibits, we found a boardwalk through the mangroves. Shelley managed to spot a wild juvenile iguana (maybe one of the ones they released?). They are such a bright green they don't seem very well camouflaged against the dead brown leaves. Presumably they would blend in better in the foliage.



The center isn't anything fancy, but if you're in the area and you enjoy this kind of thing, I'd recommend it.

See all 18 photos in this batch

Zihuatenejo to Manzanillo

We headed to the coast, to Zihuatenejo, to do some scuba diving. (More on the diving later.)



We found a nice looking AirBnB right close to the dive shop. The location was perfect, the view out over the bay was fantastic, and the architecture was unique. But unfortunately, it was not well maintained. When we arrived there were half empty beer bottles, overflowing ashtrays, and dirty sheets on the bed. There was dirt and grime everywhere. The lock on the door didn't work, but that was mostly irrelevant because the rooms were open on one side so it would be easy to get in regardless. Supposedly the place had private parking (one of our criteria) but that turned out to mean parking on the street. At least it wasn't a main road. It worked out ok for our stay, but we wouldn't go back.



Of course, one of the first things I look for is a good coffee shop. (The mark of a caffeine addict.) We found Cuattro Cycle Coffee and Tea. It was a bit of a walk away from the tourist beach area, but that kept it a bit quieter.



We haven't seen an abundance of wildlife. Mostly just the usual suspects, pelicans, frigates, grackles, egrets, and herons. We had a few geckos in our AirBnB, but I only saw them in the early morning as it was getting light, and they disappeared right away. The Snowy Egrets are easy to identify with their yellow feet and black beaks.



This is some kind of flycatcher, probably tropical. It looked very yellow from certain angles.



And a squirrel of some sort. Funny that squirrels are regarded as "cuter" than rats. (At least in Canada and the USA)



Of course, where there's water, there are reflections:



From Zihuatenejo we were headed further north up the coast to Manzanillo. It was a bit far to drive in one day so we looked for somewhere to stop. That stretch of coast isn't very populated or touristy so there wasn't much. (We drove 3 hours at one point with no cell service - unusual even in Mexico.) We found a reasonable looking place in Caleta de Campos - Hotel and Villas Partour Caleta. There was a small restaurant at the hotel, but when we asked about anything vegetarian they just said "no". All we could find in town were beach restaurants serving seafood. We ended up with scrambled eggs and french fries. (Which is also all we could find for lunch the next day.) On the positive side, the room was nice, with great views of the beach, which was also nice.





And even some wildlife:



And signs of wildlife (some kind of crab presumably):



And another nice sunset:



See all 21 photos in this batch

More Flowers

Another batch of mostly unidentified flowering objects. A lot of these I took with my iPhone while "para-waiting" on the Malinche launch near Tenancingo. I had meandered a long way down the ridge when Shelley texted me that the other pilots were getting ready. I rushed back, but it was a false alarm, no one actually launched.

I continue to be amazed by the variety of flowering plants and trees. Maybe I'm just accustomed to what we have at home, but it seems like there's a lot more here.



These hardly look like flowers since they're all green. But the bees were loving them. I'm amazed at the detail the iPhone can capture on these closeups.



These looked a bit like borage, and I think that's what they are, maybe Fiberglass Plant?



I'm pretty sure these are lupines of some sort:



I saw these in a few places - tiny red flowers with larger (2cm) spiky fruits.



Another one with tiny flowers and larger (pea sized) fruits.



These were colorful. I only saw them once.



These looked a bit like orchids, but on a bush.



A more unusual shaped flower:



These prickly pear cactus were familiar. I always like their flowers.



But in Canada we don't have bromeliads growing in tree like cactus.



Maybe some kind of Cosmos?



I was told this isn't the peak season for flowers, but there were still lots to be found if you looked.

See all 16 photos in this batch

Running at Patzcuaro

Since we were just passing through, we decided to stay on the outskirts of Patzcuaro, at the Itzhi Eco Hotel. (We’re suckers for “eco”) It was hard to tell what eco translated to, but there was a nice garden where I took photos of the flowers and snails.









And it looked like with the right wind you could launch a paraglider from the front lawn :-)



I was intrigued by the island in the lake, next time we'll have to visit it.



The hotel had a restaurant so we had thought we'd be able to enjoy the hotel and not have to go out again. The restaurant looked great, with wonderful views, but it was closed. Which wasn’t surprising since we were the only guests as far as I could tell. No problem, there was a fancier hotel just down the street and it also had a restaurant. We went to check it out and got a brief tour of the hotel (very nice). I asked about the restaurant in my infinitesimal Spanish, “restaurante?”. I got a positive response, “Si, 4:30”. Ok, open later for supper, great.

I had seen several people go running up the road so I decided to go for a run. It was cobblestones, but relatively smooth. I checked Google maps and found the road went two kilometres uphill to a lookout (mirador). A short way up the hill there were dirt trails separate from the cobblestone road that I was happy to take. (Strangely, the other runners stuck to the cobblestones.). Coming from the flatlands, I’m not used to running uphill for two kilometres. But I watched my heart rate and set a pace based on that. It seemed painfully slow, but I was working hard.

I reached the end of the road to find hundreds of steps leading up to the top of the hill. I have to admit I resorted to walking, and even that kept my heart rate up. And they were steep uneven stairs which limited my speed going down.

I paused back at the lookout to check out a possible paraglider launch. It was a bit small and committing but looked doable. Lots of fields below to land in.

The dirt trails on the way down were a bit tricky - muddy from the day's rain, and with rocks and roots. I wished I had my trail runners rather than my road ones. Overall it felt pretty good, although it seemed harder and slower than it should have been. Afterwards I realized I ran to about 2500m, which is probably high enough to slow you down, although we’d been around 2000m for the last three weeks and should be somewhat acclimatized. My watch told me I’m losing fitness, which makes sense since I haven’t been running much. But I’m not sure how well it takes altitude into account. My knee didn’t bother me during the run, but it was a bit sore afterwards. (From my paragliding mishap.)

I got back and showered and we wandered down the street ready for a nice supper at the hotel next door. It was all closed up. We realized they must have been saying they closed at 4:30, not that they opened at 4:30. Crap.

That meant driving, which we'd hoped to avoid by staying at a hotel with a restaurant. We didn't want to get caught up in downtown traffic so we picked a neighborhood pizza place. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it sufficed. No vino but we got cervezas :-)

See all 10 photos in this batch

Paragliding at Tenincingo, Mexico

launching from Malinche

From Valle de Bravo we drove to Tenancingo where fellow Canadian pilot Guy Harrington (Sea to Sky Paragliding) has the Casa del Piloto bed and breakfast for paraglider pilots. He was a great host, making us some great meals and drinks and showing us the local markets and restaurants.

We flew mostly at the Malinche launch, which is the closest to the Casa. Given a thermal or two you can fly back to an LZ right close to the Casa.

The first day I launched before Shelley. I got reasonably high but came back to launch (losing most of my height) to join Shelley as she launched. I fully expected to climb back up again since it hadn't been difficult the first time. But our timing was unlucky and we hit big sink. I still wasn’t too worried since sink in one place means lift somewhere nearby. But that only helps if you find it, and we didn’t. We had to head directly for the LZ. But we got sink all the way. If we had fully realized how much we were sinking and taken the straightest path to a landing we would probably have made it. Shelley was slightly behind and above me, making it hard to keep track of her. With both of us landing almost at the same time we had to be careful to avoid each other. I saw her swing wide to the right, following the landing pattern we'd been briefed on. But we didn't have enough height for that, and as soon as I saw her go to the side I thought, "oh crap, she's not going to make it to the LZ". I got a slight bump from a thermal and tried to follow it, hoping for a low save, but it was nothing. Now I was too low. We came in almost side by side. I was hands up trying to eke out a little more distance, but neither of us made the end of the field. Shelley managed to land on her feet in a small clearing. I didn't have quite as good luck One thorny tree left a few claw marks on my left arm. And a branch snagged my right leg and twisted it under me painfully as I reached the ground. Luckily it wasn't badly injured and was just sore for the next few days. I'd have been really pissed if I'd done more damage.

There's a saying in paragliding that there are two kinds of pilots - ones that have landed in a tree, and ones that haven't landed in a tree yet. Since neither of us ended up actually hanging in a tree, I was told this didn't count.

Both our wings ended up draped over small trees, luckily not thorny ones. The trees were too tall to reach the top, and too small to climb, so we waited for help to come with saws and machetes.

Guy flew down to help us. By now it was noon and the LZ was very thermic. We watched him get bounced around on the approach, and then to our horror, take a huge collapse not far above the the ground. Having recently watched someone take a collapse and crash at Tapalpa, we didn't want a repeat, especially when the only reason he was there was to help us. Thankfully this time the wing opened up again and he landed safely. A less skilled pilot might have had a different result.

Daniel also showed up in the truck and between us we quickly got the wings extracted, thankfully with no damage.

I was really bummed out. Hitting so much sink and no lift was unusual, not something we could have predicted. Perhaps a different line might have avoided it, who knows. But my failure to fully grasp the situation and handle it was pure pilot error. At the time, I wanted to tell Shelley not to swing wide, but I didn't want to take my hands off the controls to use the radio. In hindsight, I could have just yelled, we were close enough.

We got our wings packed up and headed back up to launch for the afternoon flight. Shelley was not keen to fly but she decided to get back on the horse. She didn't really want to land back at the same LZ, but she also didn't want to try for cross country to one of the other LZ's. I got up high again but I was keeping an eye on Shelley. Eventually she landed at the LZ, but neither Guy nor I could get hold of her on the radio to confirm she was ok (her radio wasn't working properly). We could see her start to pack up, so presumably she was ok, but I didn't want to leave her on her own to hike out and find a taxi so I lost height and landed. Between being psyched out about landing there again, and not used to sloping LZ's she'd had an awkward landing and pulled something in her leg. Unfortunately, that put an end to her flying for the rest of our time in Tenancingo. Having made it unscathed through landing in the bush, it was frustrating to get hurt landing in the open.

better second landing, launch is at top right

The next day we headed back to the Malinche launch. And ended up waiting all day. It was cloudy and almost no thermals coming up. Eventually, late in the afternoon, Guy launched and sank out. A couple of local pilots launched and managed enough lift to do a single circle and top land. Finally someone launched and managed to stay up, prompting everyone else including me to launch. I got some decent height but decided to top land before everyone else so I could take my time. Top landing (where you land at or near the launch) can be tricky and I had only done it a couple of times before. I was happy that I ended up doing a reasonable job at it.

The next day was forecast to be windy so we headed to a different site (Picacho). It was mentioned multiple times that we had to get there early or it would be too windy. But that didn't seem to have any impact on getting up late, going for breakfast, etc. We arrived at the site at noon, and of course, it was too windy. We ended up at the training hill, where it was also quite windy (gusting over 30 km/hr) but we managed one flight down and then a bunch of kiting. Ground handling practice is always worthwhile, but it's one of the few things we can do at home, so I wasn't too excited about coming all the way to Mexico for it. The plan was to get back to the Malinche launch around 5pm in hopes the wind would die down later in the day. But by the time we finished kiting, and then went for lunch, and then walked through the market (!), it was more like 6pm when we got to launch and other gliders were already in the air, so all of a sudden it was a rush to launch. With my fairly minimal gear I got set up and launched first. I was extra careful with my safety checks given the rush. What I didn't account for was Guy's dog running around on launch. Just as I was getting airborne it ran between my legs jumping and barking. I don't blame the dog, it doesn't understand what's going on and gets excited by the action. But in that case it should be tied up. I managed to launch ok, but a botched launch could at best mean a nasty tumble down a steep bushy slope, and at worst a crash after launch. Launching is critical enough without extra canine obstacles. And to make it worse, apparently it's happened before. (BTW if you're not a dog lover, you might think twice about staying at the Casa del Piloto and flying with Guy)

trying to avoid the dog

I had a reasonable flight and was setting up to top land when I was told to back off and let a tandem land. I understand we give the tandems priority, but it was a little frustrating because it was getting late and the sun was going down (because we'd arrived so late). The tandem pilot had no doubt top landed there many many times. Despite doing ok top landing the day before, I was still quite nervous about it. Especially since if I missed it and got below launch I'd have to fly out to the LZ and land in near dark. I managed to stay up while the tandem landed, but when I came in I misjudged my height, went too far over the back, and came too damn close to another close encounter with the bushes.

In the end it was a very frustrating day for me. On top of being late for everything and almost botching my top landing, I spent about three hours riding in the back of the truck (with the dog) getting bounced around in the dust and exhaust fumes, not very pleasant.

The morning we left Valle we mentioned to another pilot that we were headed to Tenancingo. He said the only problem there was that the LZ wasn't great, and top landing could be tricky. Little did we know how prophetic those comments would be.

There's obviously good flying around Tenancingo, and the Casa del Piloto is nice, and Guy is a great host. But unfortunately our few days there didn't work out very well for us.

Photos thanks to Shelley

Paragliding at Valle de Bravo, Mexico

nice big landing area

When we were "planning" this trip (a few random conversations) we decided we weren't going to go to Valle de Bravo. Although it's one of the top paragliding sites in the world, it's also busy, and can be challenging. But by the time we visited the monarch butterfly sites, we were quite close so we figured we should at least have a look. And that evolved into we might as well try flying there. We knew people bring groups here that include beginners, so it seemed feasible.

Because of the reputation we hooked up with a local paragliding instructor, Marko Hrgetic (Flumen Paragliding), and his group. I was actually thinking of finding a local Mexican company but came across Marko’s web site and he was instructing rather than just offering tandems so it seemed more what we were looking for. I didn’t realize at first that he had competed in the last X Alps.

Also, since there are so many people (we counted about 50 paragliders while we were there) it's nice to be in a group. Thankfully, as less experienced pilots we launched earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon than most people. Although, if you managed to stay up after an early morning launch, then it wouldn’t be long before everyone else came out to play. I told myself it was good practice to fly with other people but I still don’t like it. Flying is challenging enough without constantly having to be on guard for collisions (which do happen) As with driving, it isn’t so bad if everyone is rational, but there’s always someone who isn’t.

For some reason I was nervous about flying at Valle. Partly the reputation, partly the potential crowds, partly not wanting to get in the way of good pilots. We emailed but hadn’t received an answer by the end of the day. The next morning we got up at 7:30 to find an email that they were heading out at 8:15. My first thought was to rush to get ready but it would have been tight so we decided to wait a day. Instead we wandered over and found the meeting place and introduced ourselves. Later we drove over to check out the landing zone. We had a point on the map but it took us awhile to find the access road. It’s always nice to walk the LZ before landing there. In this case it’s not on the way to launch so we wouldn’t have seen it otherwise. (Other than from high above.)

As I fully expected, the flying went fine. Shelley was happy to launch first since she wasn’t hung up on a long flight. Most people don’t want to go first in the morning because if the thermals haven’t started you end up with a short flight.

In hindsight we should have come earlier in the season. By February conditions are getting strong at midday, which meant we wanted to be down by 11:30, limiting our morning flights to under an hour. And the days we flew the winds didn’t die down till late in the day, limiting evening flights to 30 min or so (before the sun went down.)

It was too far (about 45 min drive) to go back to town between flights so we hung out at the landing area. Luckily there was shade and a couple of taco stands. But it made for a long day e.g. leaving the hotel at 8am and getting back at 8pm.

The flying was good. It wasn’t too rough and there were usually enough thermals for even beginners to stay up. Most people come to Valle to fly cross country but we stuck around launch. I got high enough to cross to the next peak - El Piñon - but didn’t get up the nerve to go on my own.

We only ended up flying for a few days. We missed our last day because I got sick and spent  the night throwing up. Unpleasant, but par for the course. No matter how careful you are with what you eat and drink, there are always plenty of opportunities to fall prey to some unfamiliar bug. After that Marko had a group of new students and our hotel was full for the weekend so we moved on. But we enjoyed flying at Valle and would be happy to come back sometime. Marko was great and we'd be happy to work with him again.

waiting for the thermals to start

Photos thanks to Shelley. See also her blog post