20240410 Wednesday, April 10, 2024 Deep Sea Fishing Excursion

Today was an early start to hop a cab to the Mazatlán Marina to board the fishing charter the "Las Patronas" boat.  Unfortunately when we got there, we learned there was already a party of 4 who said they had the charter booking.  This raised all sorts of fears that Jon's dealings in booking the reservation might have been all counterfeit.  He as visibly upset about the mix up at the office which resulted in a double booking.  Although there was physically room for 9 on that boat, the two men in the party were firm on not allowing us to join because they really wanted to focus exclusively on marlin, and it would be very unusual for any charter to be successful in boating one marlin in a day charter.  

Eventually Jon managed to book a different boat which was less expensive, but not equipped with water, food and drinks.  But the charter operator ran us in his van to the nearby Oxxo convenience store to buy ourselves some food and drinks.

The ship was a 40' sport fisher with a steering station above the saloon, but no "Tuna Tower" at the very top.  It had a large, comfortable cabin, but pretty small cockpit in the back.  When Ben and Mark toured the boat, they noticed they each had more electronics in their pockets than the ship, which only had a pocket Garmin GPS, and VHS radio.  We were a bit concerned there was no fish finder or radar, but it is what it is. 

Heading out into the Sea of Cortez was pretty rough, driving into the swells at 14kmph.  We got about 12 miles off shore where the deck hand baited and set 5 lines- 2 on outriggers, 2 on the outsides of the transom, and one in the centerline. Ben found it odd that they towed the lures inside the boat's wake, rather than behind or deep to it.  However, Mark said in his experience with fishing out of Baja, this is a common technique.  They trolled this way at around 6kmph.  

We eventually crossed into much deeper water (>1600.) at about 25 miles off shore.  There we had a takedown of one of the outriggers.  The captain set the hook and then passed the rod to Jon who played the fish in.  It was a very substantial 86" long Marlin.   

About an hour later, a second smaller fish struck the lures but threw the hook after leaping up into the air twice.  Mark and Ben didn't get a chance to reel in any fish, but Ben enjoyed seeing how it was done.  We had just tagged along on Jon's charter at a huge discount for us.

After returning to the hotel, we changed into beach and pool gear, and Ben tried his hand at surf fishing and body surfing again, but to no avail this time of day.  But it was as good an excuse as any for getting in the surf.  

In the evening, we walked down to Pancho's Restaurant, which is half the distance to the Maleon.  We had scoped it out yesterday.  It was very busy, but we only had to wait for a couple of minutes before we could be seated inside.  The food is similar to American Mexican restaurants, with huge servings.  Janet ordered the bacon wrapped shrimp- a bit more heavily charred on one side but till very tasty.  

Ben ordered a Mexican Plate, which has carne asada, deep fried cheese stuffed pepper, a hard shell taco, two taquitos, and two quesadillas along with rice and beans.  Both were huge portions so we kind of waddled back to our hotel during the sunset.  Tomorrow we embark on an inland cultural tour.

20240409 Monday, April 9, 2024 Just another day in Mazatlán

Ben got his videos from the eclipse uploaded overnight. Although the hotel has wifi, it is atrocious, barely managing 2-3MBPS in the lobby, while connecting in the room is entirely hit or miss, with good 'ole dial up speeds from the early 1990's.  Many of the people we met here have been asking for images and videos because none of theirs turned out, so getting them up on YouTube was the best way to make what we got accessible.  

High tide was in the morning so we spent the morning down by the pool and in the surf.  Ben and Mark discovered fishing the beach at the Royal Villas Resort requires a technique combining body surfing with surf fishing due to the relative flatness of the beach and size of the incoming surf waves. They each managed to catch some yellowtail amberjack, which they released since we don't have any way to process or store fish in this hotel.  

And we did decide to join another hotel guest who has booked a fishing charter on Wednesday.  Spending that much time body surfing in the 72˚F water got us a bit hypothermic so we had to spend some time in the hotel's hot tub, which was more like a warm tub.  

After getting changed into street clothes, we grabbed a bite to eat at the Epa Epa Tacos, which is basically street tacos and similar fare.  Ben had two tacos while Janet had a quesadilla and a taco, along with a Pacifico beer each for $15US.  Despite being such a touristy location, while it's expensive by Mexican standards, it's been pretty affordable by US standards.  

We walked back towards the Malecon and found no more paramilitary garrison around the fancy condo we saw the day before the eclipse.  We saw the "Sea Shell Museum" which is just a huge store with in incredible variety of marine sea shells of all sorts.  Then we walked through a tourist mall and enjoyed some people watching on the beach looking down the Malecon from a small jetty.  There were people being hauled up into the sky in a Parasail, while others were struggling to flop over the gunnels of pangas beached in the surf to be ferried to Bird Island.  The staff had to time the waves and manually push and pull the boat once the outboard was tilted up to get it on and back off the sand.  It is quite a process, made harder by overloading the boats.  

After getting back to the hotel, it was time for a nap and relaxation.  We didn't feel particularly adventurous for dinner so we hit the Carl's Jr. across the street which was promoting a Godzilla vs King Kong burger special.  That was a LOT of food with the Godzilla being a triple patty bacon cheese burger and the King Kong a triple patty cheese, tomato and lettuce monster.  We'll hit the sack early because we will have to get up early tomorrow for the fishing charter.

20240408 Monday April 8, 2024- Total Eclipse of the Sun in Mazatlan

Reverting back to our old swim meet days, Ben got up at daybreak and got down to the pool deck to discover that they had removed all the pool loungers and placed tables all over the pool deck.  Ben was one of the first down so he picked some plastic chairs that had been stacked at pool side and put them around the table nearest to where he had rehearsed viewing the eclipse yesterday.  As people filtered down, they took up stations until someone in management arrived and broke the news that the entire pool deck was reserved for an Eclipse viewing party and that we didn't have reservations.  Well this was news to us because nobody had mentioned anything of the sort when we checked in, or as Ben went through his eclipse viewing rehearsal.  Fortunately, the table adjacent to where he had set up was not yet booked, so Ben arranged to get on the reservations list and would pay the $450MX ($28US) admissions per person when the woman in charge of the Eclipse celebration showed up. Fortunately, the fee was just $50MX more than the normal breakfast buffet, and the breakfast was included from 8am to noon, which coincided with the Eclipse viewing period.  It felt a little like a gouge to charge hotel guests extra to use the pool deck to view the Eclipse that they had booked their stays presumably to view the Eclipse.  But, in the end, it turned out fine because it was quite an extensive buffet and included juices, coffee, tea and mimosas.  The tables and chairs were certainly better suited for eclipse viewing that pool loungers. It seemed like a pretty first class way to enjoy an eclipse, as opposed to roughing it in the wilderness like Ben did for the 2017 eclipse in eastern Oregon. 

We ended up sharing a table with two other parties.  One was a couple of women from Minnesota, and the other were a husband and wife from Everett that Ben had met the day before while rehearsing for the eclipse.  There were large families of Mexicans on either side of us.  At first people were upset because they were told that the beach was closed, but eventually, the management relented and allowed guests to sit on the beach, and eventually even let them take some of the plastic pool chairs onto the beach.  Because it was high tide, there wasn't a whole lot of beach, but the resorts restrict access to the beaches so they weren't crowded with locals.  

There were high but thin clouds present during the eclipse which were not dense enough to obscure the eclipse viewing through the eclipse glasses, but they did make it hard to make out any stars besides Venus during the totality.  The Solar Eclipse Timer app was helpful in announcing when to put on and take off eclipse glasses and solar camera filters, as well as when to look for other eclipse phenomenon, such as temperature changes, animal behavior, pin hole camera effects, shadow effects, and watching for the approach and retreat of the umbra.  It also reminded us to look around at the horizon during the eclipse to see the circumferential sunset effect.  It was so easy to be overwhelmed at seeing the totality that the reminders were a big help for everyone's maximizing their eclipse experience.  The temperature drop was very noticeable, dropping at least 20ºF.  The responses in the crowd were also memorable with a lot of OMG's in both English and Spanish, as well as other languages because there appeared to be guests from many other countries as well.  

Even though this was Ben's second total eclipse, it is impossible not to be enchanted by the sight of the totality with the dancing corona circling that black hole in the sky where the sun is supposed to be.  It was the first totality Janet, Mark or Erin had experienced, and now they understand how difficult it is to explain just how incomprehensible a totality is different from any other type of eclipse.  When it goes from 99.9% to 100% the whole world changes in an instant.  I can't emphasize how seeing a totality must be on everyone's bucket lists.

As soon as people caught their breaths after the sun came back on, the universal experience is to wonder how they can see that again.  When is the next total eclipse of the sun?  August 12, 2026 in Greenland, Iceland and Spain!  And then August 2, 2027 through the southern Mediterranean and Red Sea!  Good excuses for planning future trips across the pond.

Ben spent the rest of the afternoon downloading images and video from his equipment and sorting through them while Janet relaxed and got in a good nap.  In the evening, we had "snacks" at the hotel bar, which were burgers and quesadillas with 2 for 1 mango margaritas, of course.  We then walked a bit along the Main Street to the north, checking out restaurants and wandering through a few tourist malls.  

Tomorrow will be low key with nothing hard scheduled.  Ben and Mark will probably fish the surf, while we are booked to go out on a real fishing charter on Wednesday, and an inland cultural tour on Thursday.  We leave on Friday to head back home.

20240407 Sunday, April 7, 2024- Moving from Park Royal to Royal Villas Resort in the Golden Zone

It was pretty easy getting up earlier with sunrise occurring at 5:50am.  We checked out of the Park Royal and had a cab take us to the Royal Villas Resort.  The bell captain informed us that taxis don't take credit cards so when we told him we only have US currency, he got the taxi driver to accept $10 US for the trip to the Royal Villas, which was just 4 miles but which would have been impossible with suit cases since we had walked about half that route yesterday.  It proved well worth the fare because it seemed like a really long way with some pretty bad traffic.  We were at front desk by 8am, and were expecting to have to wait until 4pm to get into our rooms, but it turned out that they had a vacant room ready to go, and they let us check in early without extra charge, apparently because we were booked to stay 5 nights.  That was a huge relief because we didn't have to worry about where to store our bags and Ben really needed all his eclipse photography gear to rehearse for the eclipse between 10am and 11:30.  

We got a room on the top floor of the hotel (12) on the north west side of the building.  This gave us a nice view to the west and north, but unfortunately, this meant we weren't going to be able to view the eclipse from our balcony.  Ben was worried that because of the height of the hotels, the sun might be obscured when viewed from the beach or west of the buildings, but it turned out that if he set up right at the edge of the patio between the pool and beach, that there was adequate clearance from the tops of the buildings to get a good shot of the eclipse with his 200mm lens.  We will try to stake out this spot tomorrow morning.  Ben was able to practice setting up the camera to record the arc of the sun on a single video frame without moving the camera during the critical interval between 90% through the totality and 10% reveal.  This will capture the corona once the solar filter is removed.  Ben will have to remove the solar filter the moment totality begins and replace it the moment the sun emerges from behind the moon.  Still images will be taken at intervals from the start of the partial to the end of the partial.  

Ben has a Solar Eclipse Timer app to provide audio cues as to eclipse events and ideal photo intervals.  He had resurrected a retired iPhone to dedicate to this task, and tested it at home, but when the phone was powered up, something had corrupted it so the passcode wouldn't unlock it.  Resetting the phone required an 8GB internet download, which was impossible with the hotel's 2MB/sec internet (7 days to complete download- Ha!).  So plan B is to use Ben's primary iPhone for this.  Unfortunately, the timer ap requires the phone to be dedicated to the task and not used for photography.  But between his mirrorless Canon EOS M50 and Go-Pro cameras, he will be plenty busy.  Janet's iPhone will be used to do photos of people and the surroundings during the eclipse.  

After completion of Ben's eclipse rehearsal, we took a walk down to the Malecon, which is a mile to the south.  We stopped and had lunch at a hole in the wall family restaurant filled with locals.  The kitchen was at the front of the restaurant so you walked between the man making tortillas on the right, and the grills and other work stations on the left, to the dining room in the back.  Nothing fancy, but the food was well prepared and decent portions for pretty inexpensive prices, especially for a tourist zone.  We appeared to have been the only tourists brave enough to wander in.  

There are plenty of tourist oriented bars, burgers and grills along the main drive, which is filled with an insane amount of loud and crowded traffic.  People renting huge UTV's and sand rails drove through town blaring music over the roar of their exhaust.  There are also tons of souvenir shops with trinkets spilling out onto the haphazard side walks, which seemed to be designed to be obstacle courses with dips, ridges, sudden drops, unmarked curbs and random slopes to dump you into the traffic roaring by.  It was quite a contrast to the area around the Park Royal which was relatively devoid of the tourist shops and bars.  It was a bit much for us country mice.  

When we did finally reach the Malecon, the first quarter mile was packed with tourists and vendors making it hard to walk, but it thinned out as you got further from town.  The beach below was full of people of all ages playing in the sand.  We noticed a pile of oysters on a rock near the beach entrance where someone was selling them.  Other vendors walked with huge skewers loaded with shrimp with a lime on the end.  It was very much like a circus environment.

We took a different route going back which was off the main road. This was the access for several waterfront hotels.  As we approached one particular condominium, it was surrounded by several paramilitary vehicles with at least a dozen heavily armed and fully armored and masked soldiers on alert. There must be someone very important spending the weekend in that building to see the eclipse.  

We got back to our room just in time to FaceTime with Price at home and Ciara who is en route to Indianapolis to view the eclipse.  John was en route to Upstate New York, which is also in the totality zone.  He flew back from France for a brief "Vacation" back in the states, but couldn't join the conference from the road. 

We had dinner at the Royal VIlla's formal restaurant and were pleasantly surprised that it was a very nice dining experience, complete with cloth napkins and individual coat and hat mini trees for each table as needed.  We had variations of grilled and sauted prawns including cheese stuffed bacon wrapped prawns that we will have to figure out how to make at home.  It also was nice that happy hour featured 2 for 1 cocktails and margaritas.  We had some very yummy fresh mango margaritas that we will probably turn into a habit during this stay.  

The weather today started moderately cloudy so Ben had to toy with exposures to compensate for passing clouds.  By late afternoon, the sky had mostly cleared with bright blue skies above and puffy clouds on the horizon.  We hope the sky will give us a decent view of the totality tomorrow, after all the preparations and anticipation.