Puerto Vallarta - A Whale of a Day!

 

Tuesday January 30, 2024

 

Great day today!  Great place!

Today we arrived at the resort city of Puerto Vallarta.  You could almost hear Ricardo Montalbán say the words we all remember from Fantasy Island. 

This is a beautiful resort destination and offers everything you would think of as such.  We get our big boat parked up to the dock just ahead of a sister ship from Carnival.  Two big cruise ships hitting the place at the same time.   As you might expect, the port city loves it.  The workers, maybe not so much.  Our berth is barely 100 yards away from a major 6 lane road.  And what is on the other side of the road but a Super Walmart and a Sam’s Club.  As you might expect, the lines were long.  Ship employees live for this kind of stop so they can hurriedly jump off the ship, go grab whatever supplies they need and then hurry back to the boat.   Ironically, so do the ship’s guests.  It was our first real stop to get the things we had already used up or forgot in our original packing.   Yes, Vialula and I made our way over there to get some essentials such as Pringles, Coke zeros, tonic water, etc.   You know, essentials.  I think the store expected us because they have at least 50 or 60 of those self-checkout lanes going.   Only problem was it was all in Espanol.   It’s hard to tell the machine we were trying to buy limes and get them weighed at the same time.   It was quite the mad house.  But I digress…

Today we got off our big boat and walked down the pier and got on a little boat, well, not a little boat.  It was a 50- or 60-foot catamaran.   The captain had a crew of 8 and luckily a couple of photographers on board, and about 60 or so of us. Off we were to the little group of islands called Marietas. It was about an hour ride out.  It is actually a national park and so we were not allowed to get on the actual island.  

 

We were, though, allowed to swim and snorkel in its waters.  There was a fairly strong pull of current both coming and going from the island but not so much that you couldn’t handle it.  We all have on vests and snorkel gear and several of the crew were in the water with us.  Sea birds of all types were flying around us, including the  elusive blue footed booby bird!   I just like the name but it is a real bird and they do have blue feet.   The island was white in places due to all the guano the birds leave behind.  Colorful fish swim around without much care to the big, ever lurking, funny looking fish floating on the surface watching them.

But the stars of the day were the whales.  Big humpback whales come to these waters during this time to mate and to have their babies.   On our way out to the island we saw several along with some babies no more than a couple of months old.  I must admit it is quite a sight to see.   Someone would yell out and point and everyone on the boat would rush over to that side and nearly tip the boat over!  Everyone would stand there with their phone over their heads waiting for the next breech.  Then snap snap snap snap.   I am sure most of us didn’t get the picture we wanted or else everyone got the same picture, etc.  The captain made it fun and was very good and pointing things out and sharing his knowledge of the area and the whales.  We spent about 45 minutes or so in the water and it got a bit chilly.   Once everyone was back onboard, lunch was served and the bar was opened up.   Did I mention it was an open bar?   The crew would not let a plate or glass get empty as they continually passed by with whatever you wanted.  

 

The captain is without a doubt a frustrated rock band singer.   The rest of the trip home was filled with food, drinks, (my local beer was Pacifica), music and fun as the captain and crew put on a rock concert for us complete with outfits, fake guitars, fake girls, wigs, etc.  Groups like AC/DC, Van Halen, Rolling Stones, Joan Jett, were all represented well in the act.   How he got these young guys to put on the outfits and do this is beyond me.    You could tell it wasn’t the favorite part of the day for them but the captain played it up and everyone had a great time.   It’s most likely possible that more pictures were taken of this “concert” than were taken of whales.

A few more whales were seen as we were headed back and if it wasn’t too far away they would get as close as they could without delaying our arrival back at the dock.  This was by far Vialula’s and LeRoy’s favorite tour thus far. We always like getting out on the water.   I mentioned the 2 photographers on board.   They have great equipment and had some great shots so we bought their package along with whatever our shots turned out to be.  We both said that this was a place we would like to return to when we have a week or so to spend.  Something to look forward to in the future perhaps.

So, two good but different stops in Mexico.  Now we head west toward Hawaii.  Six sea days to rest, relax and blog.  Kona, Hilo and Honolulu await us in the 50th state.  Got some big big news in our next blog so stay tuned and keep reading along with us.   Take care and be well!

 

LeRoy and Vialula