Cabo San Lucas Part 2

One thing that we like to do in warm climates is go snorkeling. The water in front of the hotel was too rough and deep and sandy. There are, however, other excellent beaches in the area for swimming and snorkeling. We went to Santa Maria Bay, Chileno Bay, and Lover's Beach. The photo above is at Santa Maria Bay where you can see the water is relatively calm and it has a nice empty beach. What you can't see is the collection of snorkeling tour boats that fill the right side of the bay. Fortunately, we paid $20 for a taxi to take all of us there and got to stay as long as we wanted. The people on those boats paid $40-$60 dollars each to spend and hour and a half in the bay. We win.

This is the view from Chileno Bay, one bay east of Santa Maria. It is a bit more open but it has protective reefs and more reef=more fish.

This is the closest we come to a family portrait.

Another snorkeler (one from the boats no doubt) gave Matthew a piece of bread before Jocelyn could say "Too many fish!". He quickly became very popular with the fish. But alas, fame never lasts, and neither does soggy bread underwater. You'd be lucky to get fifteen seconds out of it.

I finally got an almost decent photo of a parrot fish. We have seen them in the Caribbean and didn't expect to see any in Cabo. Partly because it is a long commute, and partly because people kept saying that there was no coral in the area. Well, parrot fish eat coral and they weren't going hungry. Whoever says there is no coral around Cabo San Lucas hasn't been in the water.

There were a lot of different fish in the water, some that we see in the Caribbean and some new ones. These are Yellowtail Surgeonfish. Named for the barb(s?) on the side of their tail that resembles a scalpel ;-) They seemed friendly enough though I doubt Jocelyn will ever go in the water with them now.

We also saw an octopus in Chileno Bay swimming over the rocks. It eventually hid in the rocks under the... coral. It was really cool to see it swimming and change colours as it spread over the rocks. I found another one the next time we went to Chileno Bay (or it might have been the same one) and almost filled up a memory card trying to take photos and video of it before it hid away. Naturally, the second photo I took of it on the first day was the best - go figure.

There were also a few small moray eels in Chileno Bay swimming around the rocks. They really like their photo taken. Each time I dove down to snap a photo it stopped and posed for me. What a nice smile ;-)