SWCAMBORNE

Like any self respecting port town Bahia de Los Angeles, where Howard and I went diving last week, has:

a Museum

some public art

some hotels

a good restaurant

a downtown

and a dock.

The only difference is a matter of scale.  For instance the commercial dock is a semi trailer full of ice buying squid from the fishermen in pongas, the restaurant is the best in town because it is air conditioned and in the town itself only the main roads are paved or graded.

In defense of Bahia de Los Angeles.  It is beautiful, all of the people are friendly and they have whale sharks.

Life is good

The Bahia de Los Angeles Album on Flickr

All of my Bahia Blog Posts

It is about a nine hour drive from the border to Bahia de Los Angeles.  About a third of the trip is along the fertile coastal plain with farms, vineyard and tourism industries.  Then you go inland and about a third of the trip is through what can only be described as a Cactus Forest.  It was remarkable.

There were lots of cacti that looked like Saguaros

and some that looked like telephone poles with paint brushes on top.

Nurit tells me that they are Boojum Trees.

and some that looked like large but scrawny Jade Plants

Did I mention the very large Saguaros?

The other third of the trip was through very dry scrubby desert like the California desert on the way to Las Vegas.  The Cactus Forest alone made the trip worthwhile.  But we also had great diving with Ricardo, the town of Bahia de Los Angeles,  swimming with the Whale Sharks and the military check points.  And I should also mention driving with Howard for twenty hours and all of the great, nonlinear ideas we had.

See the Bahia de Los Angeles trip album on Flickr.

All five of my Bahia Blogs

In March the Codger Divers went to Utila with the hope of seeing whale sharks.  We had a good time but failed to see any whale sharks.  A few months ago my neighbor Jose M. told me that there were whale sharks in Bahia de Los Angeles, Baja California.  Howard and I drove down on Tuesday and dove with Ricardo Arce today and we saw them.

In fact we saw several.  One was named Francine.  They are huge and fast but extremely gentle.  I had borrowed Mark Z’s underwater camera for this moment so I was able to take several excellent pictures of the inside of the lens cap. And a few like this:

Ricardo found a spot where Francine was circling and Howard formed a special bond with her.  I took the picture:

Details about 12 feet with a mouth the size of a large trash can.

See all of my Bahia de Los Angeles posts

Halcyon Bush is the very good Post Mistress on Utila in Honduras.

She has a great name, a wonderfully happy demeanor and is an excellent representative of the endangered Post Office.

In March I and a few of the codger divers bought all of her postcard stamps and enjoyed getting to know her and her friend the judge.

You can see the group photo here

I borrowed underwater photographs from other people and put together this group of representative pictures.  Click here to see 49 photos on Flickr

Simon at the cleaning station

Photo by Ray P.

The fish were varied but not abundant.  There were eels and lobsters and octopi.  And one of my contributing photographers took a close up of a Garden Eel.

Garden Eel

I have posted a group of photos of the land part of the Codger dive trip to Utila on Flickr.  Click Here to See the Album.

The closest we got to a whale shark.

The Deep Blue Resort exceeded expectations.  The town of Utila was past the end of the road, rustic and exotic.

The Codger Ten.

The Codgers were, as usual, exceptionally simpatico travel companions.  Lets go to Fiji next year.  See 47 Photos

I spent a bit of time at airports getting home from Utila.  On one leg of the flight my friend Henry L. talked himself into “Executivo Classe” and another person in our traveling group worried that they would be bumped out if Henry were given a seat.  Henry, a life long Democrat, commented that this showed:

“The difference between Democrats and Republicans.  Democrats think that first class is infinitely expandable and Republicans know better.”

A nice stiff baseball cap is every mans dream.  On our trip to the Philippines last year we inadvertently came across the formula for a hat stiffening spray.  We then created a name and marketing campaign for the product.  It is called

Aussie Rules Hat Stiffener

The tag line is:

“Stiffer is Better”

And the spokesperson is:

A very hot Australian Womens Surfing Champion

If you want  to try marketing this idea contact me and I’ll license the secret formula to you.

A sunset across the lagoon.

The Deep Blue Resort from the dive boat.

Really a nice place to dive and stay

In 2004 eight  Codger Divers went to Grand Cayman.  After a hard day of diving we would go to the Big Bamboo Brew Pub, watch the cruise ships sail out of the harbor and drink a few beers.  Then we would make Andy drive us home in the Maruti.  Weston Robba, the son of Codger Harte Robba, was recently in the Caymans and has reported that the Big Bamboo is no more.  Fortunately I saved one of the collectible plastic beer mugs:

It is now a very valuable artifact of the time before the hurricane.  I will donate the cup to the Codger Divers Museum for a valuable tax deduction the next time I have any taxable earnings.   I went back and found some of my old photos and built a memorial album on Flickr.  It was easier than I thought.  See Big Bamboo Pictures Here

2004 teaser photo