Travels with The Rayman

National Geographic and Lindblad have teamed up to create a nature lover’s perfect cruise.

We embarked yesterday evening after killing the day in La Paz with a lunch on a patio (Italian food), a visit to the Serpentario, and a bus ride north to the ship (30 minute drive).  What immediately sticks out in the part of the Baja are the cacti which look like Saguaro, but aren’t.  Let’s call them cousins to the southwestern AZ cacti.  They are Cardon cacti.  They grow everywhere.  Palo Verde trees are prevalent as well.  The desert looks likes, drum roll please, desert.  Except in the lower part of Baja on the Pacific.  There is an area west of a very large mountain that gets more rain than anyplace else and it enjoyed a green tinge. 

Along the highway.

Good sized cactus to give you an idea.

One footnote on the serpentario.  We got to visit with a King snake, a Horney Toad , a five toed snake that had two feet by it’s head, and one other that we can’t remember.  Some sort of constrictor snake.  It was actually quite fascinating and the young Mexican man did a great job with the introductions to the various species.  Oh, and a tarantula.  It is a facility that rehabilitates reptiles and spiders and iguanas.  Lots of iguanas there.  

After boarding, we had a safety drill followed by happy hour followed by dinner.  Turns out this ship is not even a year old.  She is a beauty and we were lucky to score a room with a balcony…not sure how that happened but we are thrilled.  Two chairs on our deck.  The ship holds about 100 people (guests) and lots of crew.  Captain Hook is our captain…really…He introduced himself as Andrew Cook) and then he said, “I’ll let that sink in for a bit.”  Young, handsome and extremely personable.  There are four or five naturalists on board, a videographer, two camera experts, a scuba diver expert, and an expert on experts!!  

The food is fabulous with an emphasis on healthy fare and gluten free servings.  Beet juice was the juice boost this a.m. as an example.  But not to mislead, they serve the best cookies and when we returned from snorkeling a bit ago, we were greeted on board with hot chocolate laced with Bailey’s.  

The cabin is small but very well appointed.  The pillows are soft and the ocean facing wall is almost entirely a floor to ceiling slider.  Oh, my oh, my.

The passengers are very interesting as well and it’s open seating so we haven’t broken bread with the same people twice…yet.  The woman sitting next to us at breakfast was seated next to us at LAX gate.  She hails from Pennsylvania and is a dog breeder and an official judge of dogs and as such was fresh off the Westminster dog show about a week ago.  She knows dogs…especially sporting dogs.  OMG.  Great conversationalist too.  We had a great breakfast with her.  

The main activity for today was snorkeling.  But before I get into that…we spent about an hour with a huge pod of dolphins, scores and scores of them.  They really put on a show. 

I was shotting this from inside so sorry for the dirty window but…hey, must strike while the iron is hot.

IMG_4888

 As they cavorted about, one of the naturalists was on the loudspeaker giving us the low-down on them.  Their presence pushed back all the activities by an hour because watching nature is numero uno priority with this cruise.  

Rayman strikes again.

After lunch we got outfitted for our snorkeling.  Shorty wetsuits, fins, masks.  I managed to put the wetsuit on incorrectly and also the life jacket.  The 777 woman pilot was standing next to me and set me straight on the life jacket…very cool to met a woman captain for United.  We then set off on a Zodiac which is a rubber dinghy essentially.  When asked how the water was, the man in charge of water sports replied, “Refreshing.”  It was about 65 degrees, hence the wetsuits.  We entered the water from the shore and paddled around until Rayman got a leg cramp and I summoned the lifeguard for help.  That was the end of the snorkeling.  He convinced them he was all right and he headed for shore.  I lost track of him so I intently watched the bottom searching for his body until I saw him standing in waist high water.  Then I was able to breath again and managed to suck in an entire mouthful of salty water.  Saw a few fish but the snorkeling wasn’t all that good.  Water wasn’t very clear and there were not that many fish.  But the experience was “refreshing”.  

After dinner, there was a program in the reception room.  The naturalists gave talks.  The most interesting was the man that specializes in all things whale.  He gave us a history of the gray whale which featured going back millions of years to explain how the land animal that predated today’s gray whale, became the gray whale.  How the bealene formed and how the whale is closely related to today’s hippo.  Riveting talk complete with pictures that were shown on all the big screen TVs around the room.  

Then we trotted off to bed to let the visions of whales dance in our heads!!

Yessireeeee.  We spent our Monday morning counting sperm.  Whales that is.  As luck would have it our ship sailed right into a group of sperm whales, mothers and daughters.  The way the crew knew they were sperms as opposed to grays, or humpbacks, was that their spray Isn’t as high and their blow holes are located on the left side of their head.  An interesting adaptation that just about no other animal has employed in its’ evolution.  It is an asymmetrical thing.

Sperm whales also spend quite a bit of time doing “short dives”, one right after the other until they at last take in a big breath and descend to the ocean floor and then hang out in the deep for up to an hour.  

They are enormous.  And they have teeth.  No one went swimming this a.m.

We are now getting ready to get on the zodiacs again to ride over to Banana Beach on Isla San Jose.  It is a bright white banana shaped affair.  Looking forward to two hours off the ship.  Plan to walk the beach and stretch our legs.  When we return one of the naturalists will give a talk on cacti.  

Back to yesterday for a minute.  Yesterday we rested all morning on the ship declining invitations to hike or snorkel.  The afternoon, we went ashore on an Isla and Rayman and myself had the good fortune to be the only ones to take a walk with a naturalist for a photo session.  Don’t know how we were so lucky.  The other photo class had 30 attendees.  Lucky us.  It took a trip to the Sea of Cortes to learn how to use features on my iPhone.  Expensive lesson.  Rayman even got into it and took some good pics.  We may take a photo class at some point.  Great fun.   Here are a few of our shots.

Cardon cactus up close

Shell on sand

Geology

There are people on board that have lens about the size of Gilbralter.   One fellow remarked that he didn’t need to go to the gym.  Foisting the telephoto lens was quite enough for him.  Can’t wait to see the slide show at the end.  With all this equipment there is bound to be some spectacular photos.  

When we returned from the Isla, I looked like a drown rat.  Was placed on the front of the zodiac and got sprayed constantly as the afternoon winds had kicked up.  Hoping to avoid that this p.m.  After dinner, we were treated to a presentation of Mexico, it’s people, it’s food.  Very interesting because  it was delivered by a Mexican citizen who also happened to be a naturalist.  He even ate a stink bug once.  Didn’t like it.  Took three days to get the taste out of his mouth.  He liked grasshoppers though.   I think I could eat a grasshopper.  Next trip to Mexico, perhaps.

Guess I’ll go don my life vest now.  

One point.  We haven’t been lost.  We haven’t gotten into any trouble and for that I apologize because when everything goes well, the stories are a bit boring.  

Today was filled with bird watching, wandering the town of San Jose del Cabo and eating popsicles followed by looking for humpback whales.

Osprey dining

Weather has improved in that we were in the 70s today.  First day that has happened and that is on account that we arose to the sight of a sunrise in front of Friar’s Rock just off the shore of Cabo San Lucas.  Every morning 700 fishing boats race toward the sea with fisher people, tourists, and heaven knows what else.  We observed the armada at 6:30 a.m. from the deck of our ship and delighted in taking lots of pictures of the sunrise.  No sleeping in on this adventure.  The crew manages to keep us as busy as ants in an ant farm.  

To visit San Jose del Cabo we had to sail north a bit and avoid Cabo San Lucas that has grown faster than a Ponzi scheme.  San Jose del Cabo is much quainter than it’s southern sister.   Once we arrived near the port, we jumped into the zodiacs for a ride ashore and seas were calm so we arrived dry and ready to view birds of the area.  Most of the birds live in our neck of the woods but it was nevertheless fun and informative.  Having finished our bird watching we took a shortcut from the estuary into town via a walk by the sewage treatment plant.  Our guide  informed us that the town had hired a British company to come and install the plant along with an agreement that they run the plant for 10 years.  The manager likes to gross out all the visitors by drinking a glass of treated water.  Lucky for us, they did not offer us a glass.  And we didn’t get a tour.  Instead we walked to the city zocolo (center) which sported the obligatory church, city hall, and the popsicle shop along with oodles of artsy, tartsy store fronts.  The passionfruit popsicle was a winner.  Having an hour to kill, we wandered the streets looking at the stores and this is when I snapped this pic.  Hope you enjoy.

Then it was back to ship and out to sea to watch for whales.  Disappointment was no where to be found.  There were plenty of whales.  Spotted 5 flukes.  Two breaches.  And a partridge in a pear tree.  Apparently as I was showering, one humpback took it upon itself to breach 5 times in succession.  I only breached once in the privacy of cabin 207.  

Given that the weather was near perfect, we all gathered on the stern for happy hour followed by a great dinner. 

Rayman with rays at his back on the stern.

And lest you think I wasn’t onboard..

I chose a cauliflower “steak” with pesto and it was fabulous.  As luck would have it, Rayman and I were sandwiched between two twosomes.  On my left a mountain man looking person sat.  His name was Albert.  His wife across the table was Irene.  Turns out they were mathematicians that haled from Harvard and MIT.  And on my right, an internist and his friend was also a doc.  Trying not to be a dim bulb, I spent most of my time talking to Albert and Irene.  Rayman split his time in conversation with the two docs.  A good time was had by all.  All this to say that there are a lot of very accomplished people on this cruise.  The conversations at each meal have been interesting and entertaining.  It leads me to the question, “What the hell am I doing here?”  And then I remember, it’s my gift to myself for managing UR’s trust and I focus on enjoying every minute.

So, here I am in bed.  It’s 9:30, the ocean is being disrupted by the wake of the ship and it sounds great and somewhat hypnotic.  The sea is relatively calm and all is right in the world.  

Tomorrow is another day in this fascinating Sea and I’m looking forward to it all.  Some will swim with sea lions.  We are passing on that one.  And dinner on the beach of an uninhabited island followed by star gazing is on the plan.  How they will herd a bunch of people onto the zodiac for a return trip to the ship in the dead of night (peeps that may have had too much to drink) is another matter and I may report on it extensively as it sounds like interesting things may happen.  Just sayin.

This morning we were rousted from our beds bright and early for our great whale adventure.  Bright-eyed and bushy tailed we were not as the entire night before we bobbed around the Sea of Cortes like corks in a wine barrel.  Kept us awake a lot as I insisted on a full-opened door and the splashing of the waves and the groaning of the ship was not helpful for sleeping.  

After breakfast, we were herded onto buses and we took a 2 hour drive from the dock at wherever we were to where we were to embark on pangas for our whale outing.  Each panga carried about 9 people plus the boat operator and one staff member from the ship.  We headed north into the wind toward the mouth of the lagoon where the Pacific Ocean met the lagoon.  I’m sure I could have described that much better but I don’t know how so there you have it.  We headed north to the Pacific Ocean…maybe that is clearer for the dear reader.  

Pangas at the dock.

But I digress. 

When we first embarked, nary a whale was seen but as we moved north, there were a few blows noted.  And just as suddenly as there no whale sightings, we saw many blowing, then many breaches, then many whales.  OMG.  It was thrilling to be on the water with these majestic and kind creatures.  We were lucky to have for our guide, a Mexican from Colima that is an underwater expert and he seemed to possess a sixth sense for the whales.  They taught us how to notify each other where we saw these beasts of the deep.  The bow was twelve o’clock.  The right side of the boat was one, two, three o’clock.  The stern was six o’clock etc.  Very useful to help us look in the right location.  There was so many whales we almost didn’t need the system.  We easily saw 50 whales today.  Perhaps some were duplicates, but who cares?  There were great numbers of them.  Glorious experience.  Up close and personal.  But a quick note.  It is very difficult to catch the sea life on camera because the boat, and hence I, was rocking.  Secondly, the sea life doesn’t send out a memo.  They just appear and disappear just as quickly. Having said that:

The whale picture I didn’t get.

Whales do this thing called spylooking.  They poke their heads out of water and peer around their location.  It reminded me of an “up pariscope’ type of moment.  Once they took in their surroundings, they sank out of sight.  And of course they breached though the scientific community is uncertain to this day what drives that behavior.  Sitting in a small boat and seeing one of these huge 40 ton mammals breach takes your breath away.  We cheered each time.   You get so close to them that it makes you realize how really small you are.   And while it is not scientific, our guide said that boats with small children get visited much more than boats with just adults.  And that “theory” got tested today because we had Addie, an 8 year old girl on board our panga.

Low and behold, a whale came very close to our panga.  Then it went under our boat and I got so excited to see it on the other side, I fell over backward and landed on my derrière on the floor behind our row of seats leaving my left leg hooked on my seat and I’m pretty sure the left leg is now longer than the right.  The nice lady whose foot I may have landed on, helped me get up and as I made my way to the right side of the panga, the whale came right up to us and visited. Before visiting,  it blew and Rayman got slimed.    As it nosed up to the top of the water, I very briefly touched it as I was splashing to keep it interested per the instructions from our underwater expert.  OMG.  The barnacles on it’s back were about the size of a chocolate chip cookie (2 to 3 inches in diameter).  We were the only panga today that had a close up and personal encounter today and we were the only panga with a child on board.  Our underwater expert guide assured us that this was usual in his experience.  Isn’t that fascinating?  How do they know?  They must have a way to communicate perhaps by spy looking.  Who knows?  No one.  

The rest of the day was spent in an afterglow.  

One thing I must mention.  As we approached the Pacific Ocean, the water got rougher and rougher.   The swells got higher and higher.  Much relief was felt as we headed back to the dock.  My tummy was feeling queasy.  Once we disembarked we all went to a local restaurant to have lunch before we then went back to the pangas for another two hour bout of whale watching.  On this ride, we saw a mother and it’s calf.  So cool.  This time we went south and did not see as many but the it wasn’t as crazy either.  The waves were much gentler and I am happy to report there was no barfing by anyone.  Seems fairly remarkable to me.  

After four hours in pangas, we jumped on the bus and took the two hour ride back to the ship.  It was a very long day.  Dinner was buffet tonight and boy, was I glad.  Get it, eat it, vamanos.  

As we were eating our tour director informed us that we would be experiencing high seas tonight with heavy winds as well.  I found the ship Doc and got a pill to take so that I don’t get seasick.   So, I’m fortified.  And the window will remain shut tonight.  

It’s time again to dream of whales.  

Where to begin?  In the present, I suppose,  Strapped into my airplane seat, I am gaining altitude on my way to Cabo San Lucas, aka El Cabo on the departure signs in the terminal at LAX.  And I’m happy to be here.  Ditto for the Rayman who is intently watching some sci-fi movie across the isle from me.  He has been such a good boy.

Racing back to yesterday, I must say how eternally grateful I am that he did not let loose in a fit of rage with me for I may have earned his ire.  However, he was cool as a cucumber as we entered the house of the AirBnB that I had rented based on it’s proximity to the airport in Van Nuys so we could make a clean getaway to the Van Nuys bus terminal that offers covered parking for $5 a day and a bus trip into LAX, with door to door service for $9.95 each way per person.  

But, I digress.  

This is what greeted us as we creaked open the door of the AirBnB rental. 

Are you kidding me?  I was aghast.  Spider webs dangled from the chandelier, a casket sat upright in the dining room, tombstones in the backyard.  And four young women in the kitchen.  And it got better.  The bathroom was totally tiled with a shower head emerging from the wall like an apparition.  Was I dreaming?  If I was, it was a nightmare.  Part of the problem was the place was worn, like not taken care of with chipped paint, questionable floor care etc.   But hey, the good news is that it was better than that place in Italy where Rayman had to lean over to address the toilet so as not to hit his head on the ceiling.  Of course, when he took a leak at the haunted house, there were big eyeballs in the floral arrangement that sat on the tank of the toilet.  

And the Rayman dutifully brought in the bags before we went looking for a Costco for hearing aid accessories.  As soon as we pulled away from the curb, I apologized.  Meekly.  Before bursting into nervous laughter.  Was he cheerfully driving us to divorce court?  His reaction was quite suspect.  So before he could interject, I announced that I did not want to stay at the haunted house.  It was just too weird.  Why didn’t I see the pictures?  Why didn’t they advertise it as a Halloween infested house on a suburban street?  Good grief.  It was so bad, I wouldn’t stay there for Halloween.  Just sayin…

The Rayman, being of sound mind, agreed that we should not stay.  OH, and did mention, it was COLD.  Didn’t help that LA was suffering from a cold snap.  The house had lots of tile (better to clean up the blood?) which made it colder still.

As he drove to Costco, I was on my phone trying to find a place to stay, and having nothing but trouble.  My phone was acting up.   The idea was to use points from one of our credit cards to book a room.  Frustrated, I called 611 to get help.  By the time I got help, Rayman was back in the car having carried my hearing aid into Costco to get the proper help while I struggled mightily.  “Let’s just stay there”, he injected.  “No.  I don’t want to do that.  If worse comes to worse, we’ll just pay for a room.”  Finally, having sensed that I was at the end of my rope, I called CapitalOne and got a wonderful woman who got such a kick out of my story, that she researched hotels, called them for me and helped us end up in a Best Western Plus.  I then called our host and nicely explained that the place was not our cup of tea.  We parted friends.  He explained that a lot of visitors like it because they work at Disney and appreciate a bit of Campy vibe.  

After checking into a normal place, we found a PF Chang not far away and went there for dinner.  It was 7 p.m.  We had arrived at the house of horrors at 4:30.  So, of course, we were wandering the streets of Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks in the height of rush hour.  It took us a long time to get anywhere even when not getting lost.  The GPS was remarkably trouble-free.

Beginning the meal with a martini was in order.  We split one. 

And then everything seemed better.  We laughed and hooted.  Oh, and we decided if we ever get back to booking an AirBnB again, Rayman must approve the place.  I insisted on it.  I cannot be trusted.

Our fortune changed this morning when we arrived at LAX without a hitch.  We entered terminal two and a man was asking if anyone was doing the National Geographic cruise.  OMG.  Adult supervision.  It was so cool.  He helped us jump through the necessary hoops and left us after we had secured our boarding passes.  PreCheck thru TSA was a breeze.  We found a place to eat and sat down and ordered and that is when I realized I didn’t have Rayman’s phone.  OMG.  I had left it at the TSA machine.  There was a commotion and I was a bit distracted and WHAM-o….no phone.  Well, I ran back to terminal two (we had to go to terminal three to our gate).  Then I had to go thru TSA again.  And there was no phone.  But the man explained that they had video and maybe they could look at the video.  So he took me to the back and the videographer said the video wasn’t working.  “Did you try to call the phone?”, the nice man asked.  “No.”  So he dialed up the phone and someone answered.  It turned out the phone had been found and turned into the Delta Sky Lounge.  Where was that?  Back in Terminal three, upstairs.  So, off I ran to terminal three.  Having found the lounge, I was relieved to find the phone.  OMG.  So, I went back to the restaurant where the Rayman was but it wasn’t there.  So, I called him.  He answered.  He had been paged.  So he grabbed the food and proceeded to the gate.  And that is where he was.  We returned to the restaurant and I ate my cold breakfast before boarding our plane which I am now on.  We still have no idea how the phone got to the Lounge…we surmise a passenger found it at TSA and turned it in at the Lounge which was was located a good runway away (you got from one terminal to another underground) and up two flights of stairs.  I was very lucky.

Really.  All this really happened.  It’s like the Trump debacle.  You can’t make this stuff up.  

Did I mention, we ordered a tequila to drown our sorrows.  I think everything will be okay now.  When we arrive in Cabo, we are going to a resort.  There will 100 other people at the resort that will be on this cruise.  There will be adult chaperones for us.  I can’t imagine getting in anymore trouble.  

Stay tuned.

It is cold, it is damp, it is gray.  There is that.

The flip side is that it is fun learning how to get around (I’m hopelessly confused as previously reported).  No wonder I did not excel at bridge, the card game.  One must know east and west, north and south.  And one musts know Trump.  And I think I can say with near certainty that I know Trump but north and south elude me.  Pregnant pause.  

Of course, I must wax on about knowing Trump to say that I love, love Nancy Pelosi.  The woman knows how to govern.  She is dynamite and is outsmarting our self-proclaimed genius president.  Lower case was on purpose.

But I digress.

Today we headed to downtown Portland by driving our car to a Max (tram-train line) station, hopping on board and gliding into the city.  Here’s a picture taken from the Morrison Bridge. 

My friend and Beau’s sitter, Mary Kay, asked me to get her some spices at Penzey’s, an Oregon business.  I’ve been ordering Penzey’s spices and herbs for years so this was an exciting assignment.  Fresh product and no taxes or shipping.  Nirvana.  I’ll be happy to bring some back with me if any of you MB locals want some.  Just sayin. 

The funny thing is we outsmarted ourselves and went around our thumbs to get to our asses.  As we finally approached Penzey’s (after walking 20 minutes in circles), we saw Powell’s Book Store across the street which is why we were going to town in the first place.  OMG.  It’s a jewel if you are a reader.  While Rayman was perusing the History section (he bought a book on ancient Greece…everyday life, and The Third Horseman…Climate Change and the Great Famine, I was buying cards for people under the weather and a cookbook for cousin, Susie, entitled, Salt, Fat (can’t remember the whole title and I’m too involved doing this writing to get up and go look at the cover).  Amazon was out of the book.  Powell’s had it.

I sat down on a bench in the store because I got a migraine equivalent which messes with my vision and waited until it went away but while waiting, I opened the Salt, Fat book and fell in love so I went back and got another copy for myself.  It looks delicious.  

After spending a small fortune at Powell’s, we bursted forth from the store and headed to the tram-train known as the Met..from hence forth, the Met.  Oops.  I spotted a dress shop, called SaySay.  Now mind you, I’m not one for shopping but during the holidays, I met a woman at a party who was wearing this cute dress/top over pants that had dinosaurs.  I loved it.  And that’s how I found out about SaySay.  So, it was kismet.  In we went and out we went with a Dino dress, a llama sweatshirt (on sale) and another navy dress with squiggles on it.  Perfect.  Got to talking with the store clerk and discovered that her sister owns the shop, most of the fabrics are designed by the dressmakers, one piece was from a co-op in India and everything is hand sewn…in other words, a great store for a bleeding heart liberal such as I am.  She also imparted that she was 40, she and her hubby own one car, she rides public transportation every day of her life, and she worries about her friends that came out of college with mountains of student debt.  (she doesn’t have any ever though she is a college graduate).  Bright as a daisy and smart as a whip, she was.  A most enjoyable shopping experience.  I plan to be a regular customer.   While lamenting the economy for young adults, I shared with her a story of India…the train company in India is hiring 63,000 employees.  19 million applied.  Really.  OMG.  The whole world is such a mess.  But we left the shop on a high note anyway.  

We then went for a latte and a cookie (lunch) and contemplated the world.  That was interesting.  Does one prefer an elitist snob or a dirty old man for a husband?  All in jest and completely silly and, perhaps irrelevant.  

As we took our last slurp of latte, the train was espied so we grabbed our bags and headed for the door.  Good timing.  We needed to get home to feed doggie and it was starting to drizzle.  Funny thing about the weather here.  Rain comes and goes for us.  Not sure it is always that way, but we have noticed it doesn’t rain non-stop so you can get out and do things (no golf though).  Plus we needed to stop by this new grocery store that Susie requested stop by.  

Basics.  That’s the name of the grocery store.  Very unique.  It offers free cooking and nutrition classes in a very new white kitchen which is part of the store.  The grocery part of the store is laid out around recipes.  They have recipe  handouts by displays the include the ingredients required in the recipe.  So, for instance, chili?  They have chili spices, canned tomatoes, bell peppers, etc.  I hope you get the picture since I did not take a picture.  Unique and thoughtful.  Loved it.  And that’s why I am enjoying Portland so much.  Lots of new and different things here.  Not as many box stores.  Many more mom and pop places.  Love that about it.  The creativity, the friendliness, the energy.  It is exhilarating…despite the lack of golf!!

So, tonight it’s off to Susie’s for dinner.  We had them over the other night and I made black bean chili and banana cream pie.  Here are the recipes.  They were both sensational and I highly recommend that you try both.  I’m pretty sure that the banana cream pie was 2,000 calories a serving so we had a late lunch yesterday of leftover chicken and banana cream pie for dinner.  Seemed like a good idea for watching one’s weight.  And man was it good.

https://recipes.latimes.com/recipe-black-bean-chili/

I used canned diced jalapeños, 1/3 c.  It was spicy but no one seemed displeased.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11172-banana-cream-pi

Now, the crust didn’t work for me so I found a Martha Stewart recipe for the graham cracker crust.  If you have one you like, do us it.  The one in the above recipe was short of butter and baking time.