It’s the shortest day of the year, the day where night’s mantle spreads widest across our hemisphere. The flip side of this passage through Hades, this chthonic corridor as it were, be it literal or figurative, is that as of tomorrow, the days are getting longer. Not that you would know it by looking at the Canadian winter, but still. The minute the nadir is passed, the ascension begins. We will start looking to summer, after a fashion, and the full moon that will greet us on January First is certainly another auspicious sign; luminous silver to light our way in the coming year.Read more
I sort of hesitated to bring up Pulmo in the first place. In a selfish way, I kind of wish it does not become too popular. It is not for everybody and I hope it stays that way. For example, we met a couple on the beach that were up from Cabo San Lucas, where they have been staying at the Hilton for the past 14 seasons, and they looked completely lost. You could tell they were wondering why would anyone want to come here. Their loss. The place has a wild feel about it, even if a born and raised Pulmo boat captain told us it was “muy tranquilo”.Read more
Following the thrill of swimming with a whale shark, we were pretty pumped about scuba diving in La Paz. After talking to the very pleasant Cécile at the front desk, we booked with Phocéa Mexico, a large (three shops in Mexico), well staffed and well equipped shop, that had been recommended by another diver (gotta love diver word of mouth). No mental alarms going off here. Yes I left a sticker.Read more
As we headed to BCS, which is how all the hip kids call Baja California Sur (I’m pretty certain they don’t), we actually had a shopping list of underwater creatures we wanted to see, and there was supposed to be a tattoo at the outset if we saw all of them. Spoilers: we didn’t, so no tattoo. The list was composed of whale sharks, sea lions and hammerhead sharks.Read more
I found myself in the dead of night on a plane headed to Mexico, but this time we were headed to the Pacific coast, specifically La Paz, close to the southern tip of Baja California Sur, which, thanks to a pocket dictionary (and not the interwebs) I found out imply means Baja California South, and is usually (on licence plates, businesses and such) abbreviated BCS. Next to me were two other founding members of the D&C. This was going to be a savant mix of road-trip and diving. From La Paz we would take the back roads (I assumed St Christopher would be rather busy) all the way to Cabo Pulmo and then to the Cabos, Los Cerritos (a surfing spot), Todos Santos (where the original Hotel California can still be found) and finally back to La Paz. Our layover in Mexico City was short, we would be in La Paz for breakfast. It did not work out that way.Read more
Scuba diving, quality cocktails, taking it easy and other treasure maps.
