Sven + Baja = muy Smooth!

Just back in from an amazing trip to Baja courtesy of Tim and the staff at Palapas Ventana!

While I catch up on some siesta No Cal style, here's a few photos to whet your apetite. More tomorrow. zzz

Yeah, the eating was good and sometimes it was the fish...

So... the original deal was that that amigo and Keyz Kraze winner Aquiles and his wife were to meet us in La Paz and then we were to toodle off about 60 miles to Tim Hatler's place, Palapas Ventana, Palapas Ventana - La Ventana. DQBN's wife was detained at the airport owing to some misinformation about her resident status and visa, and then the fun started. Simply put, after being taken off to seperate rooms, told of being arrested and then shipped off to L.A., Houston and finally back to sunny Florida, they were looking only slighty better than the roads leading down the the arroyo. :blackeye So it was up to yours smoothly and Kerry to represent.

We made it to Tim's after narrowly missing a cow that narrowly missed a speeding truck/trailer rig and then a flying sheet of plywood. Though we had the directions to the place, we lucked out in that the 36 sq ft of flying wood belonged to Tim's Mom and Administrative Mgr., Karon. At my age, you go with the little blessings.

After you check out Palapas Ventana's website, you'll see the casitas and layout and it doesn't do justice to the place. I have seen a little piece of heaven and it fell here. The casita was immaculate, laid out with all the amenities of a fancier place and had views that I can't afford. Kerry noticed the hammock straightaway. I did more than that, and it fit juuuust fine. zzz

That next morning after a custom breakfast that along with the rest of the meals there, left me stuffed and spoiled, Tim led our intrepid pair to the water's edge and our panga for the stay. Together with his pangero, Johnny, we planed across a ripple-free 9 miles of Gulf of California towards Isla Cerralvo. Along the way the local dolphin population came along to say "!Hola!" much to the delight of newby diver Kerry.

At the Norte end we jumped into a 75 F, clear aquarium. For this guy who gets stiff when it hits 58 F and I can see my hand at arm's length, well, it was stiff. Reports of Yellowtail earlier didn't pan out, but the sight of grouper-like cabrilla along with the colorful tropicals was repaying the cost of the trip quick. A little ways South and another jump at a favorite washrock and all the while I'm thinking that these are spots at a location oft featured in the magazines and here I am. La Reyna, La Reynaita... You go into the back issues of HSD and see Neptunes and Fathomiers lifting epic fish. More cabrilla were passed by as I was just happier to be an armed floater. Tim, however was doing his best not only as a great guide, but was putting the hurt to a cabrilla or two for the table. His Riffe Island was well suited to the mid range shots the diver-wary fish were allowing.

After a last jump at the South end that would haunt me that night and another at a natural aquarium for the benefit of the trip's bikini model, we headed back to check on the status of the ropes holding the hammock. Happily they were fine. zzz Dinner proved the breakfast and the picnic lunch were no flukes with piles of fresh fish, and accompanying local fare. With Tim and Karon holding court in the spacious restaraunt, the mountains of food were no where to be found in 20 minutes. They're still looking.

Following a air conditioned -free deep collapse, I was finally leaving all the stress back at my palacial digs, and the two Wong hybrids were begging for a release as well. Another spray-free crossing to the island brought us to a little known area with the promise from Tim that the pargo were holding on the bottom some 60 feet below. I was going through the mental and stretching exercises I was taught at the PFI clinic by Kirk and Mandy as 60 feet up here in the No Cal is a number you hit for no other reason than to say you can do it. Decongested, antihistamined, warmed up and breathed up, I let my carbon fibered barrel lead me down into the 40 foot viz.

At 4 feet I was blocked from going further by a silvery school of 20 pound fish that schooled me and resembled stripped bass up here. Feeling insignificant after Tim provided the fare last night, I let loose the 5/16" shaft with 400 pounds of bands behind it and the next thing I know, I'm at 20 feet with a very pissed off fish on the other end of my line.

Having read and been told by amigos to not let these pargolisas reach the bottom, I put the clamp on and started to pull. This thing didn't like it. At all. Karma, a good gun and the sessions at the gym won out and eventually I had my paw in the gill of my first fish of the trip. Now I could relax. Yeah sure.

With blood on my shaft, I was ready to put some more protein on the deck and after the PFI- mantra, I was laying on the bottom watching the local population of 30 pound pargo scatter for the cracks and deep shelves that make them so dangerous to divers going to retrieve them. It's an oft quoted warning that many. many divers suffer SWB while trying to get these things out from their shelter after being shot and it's no bull. This is dangerous stuff. A little stainless to the brain of the nearest example made the ascent a bit more manageable, but that would prove to be the last time that would happen this trip. Tim was at the surface with a grin that his mirrored mask couldn't hide. He knew I was hooked.

Thanks.

The red fish in the last pic is a pargo. They are a snapper, often called a dog snapper, owing to the teeth in them. They are real shy and the one's I have seen and shot have generally been deep. Tim is holding the smallest cabrilla of the trip, which is similar to a grouper.

I was shooting them on this trip both aspetto style and from just dive bombing and shooting them on the fly as they swam to cover. The big thing is to either kill them outright or to keep them from getting into the holes where they know every crack and turn. :head

I don't know how I forgot this one, but towards the end of the first day, Tim and I were at the end of the island and I was just kinda laying around getting over a couple of deep dives and digging on the fact that I could see the end of my 60" Wong CF Hybrid. And then it showed up.

A Striped Marlin of about 150 pounds.

Now here in No Cal, if you want to see a Striped Marlin, you go turn on the Discovery Channel or to some seafood place's wall, but out of the edge of the blue this thing comes up, stops 12 or so feet away and turns broadside. I kid you not.

I could see the detail of the skin on this thing as it sat there for fully half a minute. And then as quiet as it came, it sort of turned off and headed West. I yelled in a voice that resembled an octave impaired 12 year old to Tim that there was a Marlin to his left and lay back in the water to collect myself.

Yeah I had the gun for it, complete with a Mori slip tip but as I was more in cruise-around mode looking at stuff and hoping to see a big cabrilla, I was sans the floatline and float that I would have needed to land the thing. Tim on the other hand, he the hefe of the place, was all dolled up with 60 inches of Riffe, 70 feet of flaotline and a inflatable float. So off he toodles and sure enough I hear the telltale "clank" of the trigger letting go. But no luck as he said his shot was high. I was just plain high.

Towards the end of the day we were in Aquarium-land again and while Kerry was off filling her camera's card with some nice stuff, Tim was off collecting some more dinner, shown here in Kerry's grip. Tasty stuff, though why she's got that grin going for his fish and not mine is something I'm going to have to finger out. :hmm

After another casual crossing and while the boys pulled the gear from the panga and loaded it in the truck to be delivered to my place we stopped to have some pictures taken of my daily deposit to the waistline. The thinner fish is a pargolisa, a free swimming pargo, but no less a fighter than really resents having a shaft lobbed through it. The other is a Dog Tooth pargo and it just plain hates your gear, you and has no problem making your life a excercise in rooting around on the bottom looking for the end of your shaft. That's me having to resort to putting on a tank to go get it. I don't leave fish behind and I don't wanna hear anybody going, Waaah! He's got a SCUBA tank on! :rcard If you told me Pargo get a percentage from the gear mail order houses, I'd believe you.

At the table that night it looked like the next photo. I gets no bettah.

Not after I've been in 'em, luv!

And Sarge- as far as memory serves, you got all the ingrediants except the yellow blobs were a sharp cheese. The thing that really had me wondering and asking the cook, was what they were cooking it in, and this was the case at the couple of other neighborhood places we ate at- the butter usage down there must be enormous. That or they have a butter flavored oil or lard that they saute in. Also, we had a crazy good dinner with a trigger fish I popped, 'cause they're mas fina en la comida where they simmer the stuff in chicken/fish stock. The taste is subtle and really leaves the fish tasting clean. I went to the scale at the gym out of sheer habit and after 4 solid days of diving, and I mean allll day, I was the same as I left, and that never happens.

At Day numero 4 my ears were heading So and Kerry needed to justify her bringing 37 bathing suits so the kitchen hooked us up with an as usual great picnic lunch and we went just down the way and over there and around that and through the gate to Punta Arenas and the Sun, sand and surf there. No Picassos, no Wongs, no Alexanders and no tops. It was tough but I managed. :king

I was glad that Tim is such a maniac about getting out there- he kept my weight down through my not wanting to be the guy screaming, "Uncle!!" :martial

Last day of diving after a little R&R on the beach doing bikini comparisons and feeling preeety damn good about my situation on this rock, and it dawns tasty. The sinuses and ears are rested, the bent shafts are replaced and breakfast is tucked away nicely behind 3 mils of Picasso Yamamoto. The viz really opened up today which was nice for Kerry and her camera but made it pretty tough for this guy to just saunter up to the fish below. Of course when you're skills are similar to that of a freight train, all the C4's in the world won't make you stealthy- but you'll get down there in a hurry. :t

The day was a testament to the pargo's affinity for life as they were all in the "Uh oh... here he comes mode", and so I was relagated to really stretching the times down there waiting for them to come out to see if I was still there. I missed :crutch two out of sheer not being able to cover my contractions anymore and finally fooled one. He must have been sick.

Being down that long and all usually means I'm on a hose in a dry hat and tied off on a oil rig leg, so I called it quits on the offshore action and took Kerry in closer to shore. Seeing as how she'd seen the other varieties of fish we shot except the delicious Parrotfish, I shot one. And now she wants a gun... I'm screwed. :head The cabrilla I added didn't make matters any better, and she like to hold them now. She's thinking this is easy.rofl