Dean & Ginny's excellent adventures...  Main Adventure Page

Cruise Peru to SanDiego—2017: << Part 1 << Part 2 << Part 3 << Part 4 << Part 5 << Part 6 Part 7 

 
A strange little fish market near the water. So maybe they buy from the incoming fishermen...

I follow the sea because the joy comes behind each wave.

A vibrant mural embedded into the bedrock.

 
Some pottery to purchase as we approached the ship, but of course, we only looked.

~~~

Our last port before San Diego was Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We'd stopped here twice on the Panama Canal Cruise--On the way out and on the way back. Click the links to see what we did then. This time we served as escorts on ship excursions.

 
Excursions gathered on the dock right next to the ship. Dean went on the Canopy adventure and I went on the Whales, wild dolphins & snorkeling trip.

 
First Dean's adventure was more than just ziplining, but also other obstacle course objects, but no cameras were allowed. Dean was the only one of the small group from the ship who completed all of the elements.

 
The start of the trail...

There were 40 people on my excursion, but only 5 were from the ship--the rest were a mixture of vacationers, but mostly college seniors on spring break. Our guide Tim, gave the group an introduction before we boarded the large catamaran and head out to The Marieta Islands National Park for our activities.

We didn't have far to travel to get to the boat.

 
My seat was on the rail on the port side near the front, but under cover. What I hadn't noticed was that one of the big speakers was right behind me and loud music was a feature of this tour. For that reason and because of the saltwater spray coming over the gunwale, I removed my hearing aids. The crew entertained with dancing and singing and a very nice lunch with alcoholic drinks included.

 
Mixed in with the cactus, birds use these rocky islands for breeding and feeding. There are coral reefs surrounding the islands so the snorkeling is more interesting than just a rocky shore.

I chose not to snorkel, but to kayak so I could get near the rocks. Lots to see, but I did not bring my camera with me on the kayak.

 
This bladder seaweed looked much prettier in the water than when laid out on the deck.

 
Guess it was time for us to move on, the next boat was here for its turn on the rocks. Traffic is carefully regulated.

  
The captain took us close the rocks and Tim talked about them in English, Spanish, and German.

Then we were watching humpback whales not five minutes later.

 
One breached right in front of us, but my camera was not ready at that moment, but this caused a large gasp by everyone on the boat. Pretty spectacular.

Then we went to see the dolphins. The captain ran the boat in a large circle and 50 or so dolphins were surfing on our wake. Very cool.

When the boat stopped, the dolphins disappeared, but people were invited to jump into the water. Mostly the college kids went in.

 
Blue-footed boobies flew along with us as we headed back into port. Dean took a photo of our boat just after it unloaded.

So being a lecturer was a lot of work getting all those presentations researched, organized, and practiced. We probably would not have chosen this particular itinerary, but I couldn't say no because they'd never ask again. Will we do this again? Time will tell. I now have some presentations that are in good shape that could work for just about any destination so the work load would be somewhat lighter. I loved reaching a different audience and people were quite enthusiastic and would stop to talk to me especially when I was on the pool deck working on the next presentations. It was different being part of the crew, too. Stay tuned for the next adventure--we've had some great ones!

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