Category: Codger Divers

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Bahia de Los Angeles the Back Story

I’ve written four prior posts about the trip Howard and I took to Bahia de Los Angeles and if your a glutton for punishment or really want to learn about this marvelous place you can find links to all of them here.

But not everything I find interesting fits into four neat categories.  These are the other impressions:

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Lots of bird.  Especially “endangered” brown pelicans

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Beautiful desert-scapes.  This one is La Ventana.  The Window

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Roadside Art

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Cats in town.

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The dive shop

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Barone the boat captain caught a yellowtail.

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A blue footed booby.  Lots of birds.

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Excellent companions.  Barone, Howard and Ricardo

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Diving in Bahia de Los Angeles

We went on three dives with Ricardo Arce the owner of Ricardo’s Diving Tours.

email: ricardoarcen@hotmail.com

Telephone: 011 52 (200)124-9262

He is a great dive master and I recommend you contact him for your trip to Bahia.

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We saw a million (or more) fish

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This was not a coral reef but the bay was teeming with life.

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Including lots of what we think of as reef fish.

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Visibility was about 40 ft

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This is a creature that seems to be somewhere between a starfish and a crinoid.  We saw it clinging to the little bits of coral that grow in the bay.

The water was about 80 F most of the time but there were serious thermo-clines where the temperature dropped into the low 70’s.  These are the first underwater photos I have ever taken.  I used an Olympus camera and housing I borrowed from Mark Z.  I wanted it to document that we actually did swim with the whale sharks.  And it worked (see the whale shark blog post)

See all of the Bahia de Los Angeles photos on Flickr

All of my Bahia de Los Angeles posts

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Bahia de Los Angeles

Like any self respecting port town Bahia de Los Angeles, where Howard and I went diving last week, has:

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a Museum

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some public art

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some hotels

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a good restaurant

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a downtown

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and a dock.

The only difference is a matter of scale.  For instance the commercial dock is a semi trailer full of ice buying squid from the fishermen in pongas, the restaurant is the best in town because it is air conditioned and in the town itself only the main roads are paved or graded.

In defense of Bahia de Los Angeles.  It is beautiful, all of the people are friendly and they have whale sharks.

Life is good

The Bahia de Los Angeles Album on Flickr

All of my Bahia Blog Posts

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A Cactus Forest

It is about a nine hour drive from the border to Bahia de Los Angeles.  About a third of the trip is along the fertile coastal plain with farms, vineyard and tourism industries.  Then you go inland and about a third of the trip is through what can only be described as a Cactus Forest.  It was remarkable.

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There were lots of cacti that looked like Saguaros

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and some that looked like telephone poles with paint brushes on top.

Nurit tells me that they are Boojum Trees.

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and some that looked like large but scrawny Jade Plants

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Did I mention the very large Saguaros?

The other third of the trip was through very dry scrubby desert like the California desert on the way to Las Vegas.  The Cactus Forest alone made the trip worthwhile.  But we also had great diving with Ricardo, the town of Bahia de Los Angeles,  swimming with the Whale Sharks and the military check points.  And I should also mention driving with Howard for twenty hours and all of the great, nonlinear ideas we had.

See the Bahia de Los Angeles trip album on Flickr.

All five of my Bahia Blogs

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Whale Sharks in Baja

In March the Codger Divers went to Utila with the hope of seeing whale sharks.  We had a good time but failed to see any whale sharks.  A few months ago my neighbor Jose M. told me that there were whale sharks in Bahia de Los Angeles, Baja California.  Howard and I drove down on Tuesday and dove with Ricardo Arce today and we saw them.

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In fact we saw several.  One was named Francine.  They are huge and fast but extremely gentle.  I had borrowed Mark Z’s underwater camera for this moment so I was able to take several excellent pictures of the inside of the lens cap. And a few like this:

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Ricardo found a spot where Francine was circling and Howard formed a special bond with her.  I took the picture:

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Details about 12 feet with a mouth the size of a large trash can.

See all of my Bahia de Los Angeles posts

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Utila Photos 2

I borrowed underwater photographs from other people and put together this group of representative pictures.  Click here to see 49 photos on Flickr

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Simon at the cleaning station

Photo by Ray P.

The fish were varied but not abundant.  There were eels and lobsters and octopi.  And one of my contributing photographers took a close up of a Garden Eel.

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Garden Eel

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Democrats and Republicans

I spent a bit of time at airports getting home from Utila.  On one leg of the flight my friend Henry L. talked himself into “Executivo Classe” and another person in our traveling group worried that they would be bumped out if Henry were given a seat.  Henry, a life long Democrat, commented that this showed:

“The difference between Democrats and Republicans.  Democrats think that first class is infinitely expandable and Republicans know better.”

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Hat Stiffener

A nice stiff baseball cap is every mans dream.  On our trip to the Philippines last year we inadvertently came across the formula for a hat stiffening spray.  We then created a name and marketing campaign for the product.  It is called

Aussie Rules Hat Stiffener

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The tag line is:

“Stiffer is Better”

And the spokesperson is:

A very hot Australian Womens Surfing Champion

If you want  to try marketing this idea contact me and I’ll license the secret formula to you.