Short Walk to the Pacific Ocean....

Our condo is only about a 15 minute walk down to the beach.  Meaning...  the Pacific Ocean.  

Wow!  It's not exactly a "flat" walk there...  first off you have to walk down the hill from where we live...

No big deal, right?  

It's downhill....  easy peasy....  but remember....  we have to walk back up this road to get home.

Ole Eagle Eyes, Bill, spotted this guy when we were walking along the road...

I know that not everyone loves seeing this kind of critter....  but we love it!

We've lived in Mexico off and on and seeing an iguana is very special because many of those folks think of him as a "delicacy" and they are decimating the population.  This guy was maybe 3' long...  not very big, but, oh, so nice to see!

What's this?  Well, it's termite nest.  Again, it was along our walk to the beach....  

And just look here!  Bill is standing next to some huge cactus.

My memory just failed me (so what else is new?) but these huge cacti aren't saguaro like in southern Arizona, they're the ones that live on the Baja and other point south.  Bill is nearly 6' tall, so you can see that these guys are quite impressive.

A 10-15 minute walk takes us at least 20 minutes.  I stop and take photos...  I stop and look at the flora and fauna....  I'm in no hurry....  But, we get to the beach.  This is Playa Ocotal....  the sand is grey or black.  Lots of volcanic lava outcropping.  This is mostly a fishing area, not many folks consider it a place to get a lovely tan and just hang out.  Bill & I don't really fit in any category so we fit in just fine here.

 This Magnificent Frigate soared far overhead....

He's a juvenile...  see his white head?   We saw several in our trip to the beach.

These Neotropic cormorants here are drying out their feathers....

The feather's of these guys aren't waterproof, so after a few dives, they have to hang out for a while.

We also saw some pelicans and a few shorebirds, but none of my photos are worthy of posting.

Here you can see the volcanic lava flow as it edges into the ocean.  That's Bill....  out there checking out birds or boats or something.

One of my favorite things are the Tidal Pools....

As the tide comes in, it leaves things...  may be little critters, or shells, or larvae of some kind...

Can you see the critter in the upper right...  or the tiny minnows in the lower right?

There's so much to see in a Tidal Pool.....  I'm sure I'll be back here quite often.

That's me....  wading along the edge of the water....

It's so good to be in 90 degree temps and have shorts and sandals be the norm.

I love it!

And, just because....

This is the dog food, the sunflower seed and the millet seed we bought yesterday.

My friend Joanne asked if we remembered to buy bird seed....  well, we did...  and.... because our rental manager told us that foxes came here at night, we bought some dog food to encourage them.

I didn't bring a hummingbird feeder with me (rats!) and so far haven't been able to buy one in town, so while we see them every day, attracting them isn't going to happen for a while.  Hopefully, the other seeds will bring some of the other birds closer to us.

This adventure has barely just begun....  there's so much ahead of us that we don't even have the imagination to think about yet.

That's All For Today!