Sombrero, Cerveza and Pelican Rock

We didn't spend our entire 24 hours in Cabo San Lucas chasing whales in a tiny boat and watching a Folklorico show aboard Ruby Princess.

After all, there's always lots to do in Cabo San Lucas.

Our whale boat Captain dropped us on a beach for a couple of hours.

Yes, we can lay in the sand in California, but there's always something enticing about sands on a foreign beach.

This being the Mexican Riviera, you don't need to go to shops to find souvenirs or snacks.  Vendors with stacks of products balanced on their heads are happy to oblige.  Just as I thought it might be nice to have a bit more shade on my face, a hatter appeared.

"Sombrero!" I yelled, waving him over, having spotted a straw Panama hat with a rakish style like something young Michael Douglas might have bought in "Romancing the Stone" after losing his felt Indiana Jones-like Fedora in the jungle.

His price of $25 seemed too rich for my blood, even if it would be more than fair at the Redondo Beach Pier hat shop back home  He offered it for $15, assuring that to be his best price, but I still balked.

"Two for $25?"

Julie didn't want one for herself.

"Ten?"

"Si."

I assume much like the white Panama hat I bought in Greece a few years ago, this one will self-destruct like a secret message for Mr. Phelps, albeit in a few weeks rather than in seconds.

After a nap with my new hat pulled down over my face like a stereotypical extra in a spaghetti western, we sidled over to a beach front bar.

Once again, we could settle into a booth at Barney's Beanery back home almost any time and enjoy a nice ocean view, but there's something special about doing it in an exotic locale.

We watched tourists covered in oil pass by, with a backdrop of our trusty cruise ship anchored in the blue Sea of Cortez on the horizon, as we sipped our beverages.

Our bill came to $7 plus a $3 tip, so besides $40 each --- 50% off, according to Ramiro Rodriguez who sold us the trip --- for our whale watching adventure and a well-deserved $20 tip for our daring Captain who picked us up from the beach as scheduled, we spent a total of $110 that first day in Cabo...make that $120 with the sombrero.

Upon returning to Ruby Princess, we enjoyed a great evening on board.

Despite our initial doubts about the appearance of the whale boat, Ramiro had steered us right the first afternoon, so we returned to buy his $25 snorkel trip..."50% off!"

We had snorkeled Cabo before at much-vaunted Playa Santa Maria and Chileno Bay, so we knowingly asked, "Which will it be?"

Ramiro pointed to a spot on a map not far from Lovers Beach --- the power of a visual presentation in effective sales --- and said authoritatively, "Pelican Rock."




"Are there fish there?"

"A thousand kinds of beautiful fish."

Probably hyperbole, but he had steered us right the prior day, so why not take another chance?

After paying an extra dollar each to enter the fenced harbor, we were introduced to Caesar and Felix, our smiling hosts who helped us board and immediately shoved off, with a crew to guest ratio of one-to-one!

As we put on the mandatory life jackets, Julie asked, "Are there fish at Pelican Rock?"

"Many, many.  600 varieties."

They fitted us with masks, snorkels and flippers, because we hadn't brought our own equipment on this cruise.  I must admit, wearing flippers, which we normally don't bring, made getting around much easier, and they insisted Julie bring her life jacket, which surprisingly she liked wearing while snorkeling.

It wasn't long at all before we reached our destination, a rocky spot with no sandy beach in sight.  No wonder it isn't generally recommended as a place to be dropped by cruise ships.

We had an all-aboard time of noon, and we trusted Caesar when he said they would be back to pick us up at 11:30 on the dot, but we told him 11, just in case of boat trouble.  Caesar offered to keep our backpack, and it didn't have much in it worth stealing anyway --- I hadn't even brought my cell phone --- but we opted to keep it with us.  Getting out of the boat in the surf almost had me immediately doubting our wisdom, but we managed to get perched on some boulders above the surf without drenching our belongings.

With no truly comfortable place to warm up, we decided to plunge right in, asking a young couple, the only others we found at this spot and who happened to be emerging from snorkeling at that moment, if there were fish to be seen.

"Yes.  Dozens."

What would it turn out to be?  Three Garibaldis and a guppy?

No.

HUNDREDS!

Maybe thousands of colorful fish.  Julie and I both thought it was better than the well-known places we had snorkeled on previous trips to Cabo.

As we swam around, boats with scuba divers arrived on one side, and glass-bottomed boats for the less adventurous came on the other side of a roped-off swimming area where we found lots of surprisingly large fish, including many favorites apparently on vacation from Ka'anapali Beach themselves.

However, we were at the tip of Baja California, not Hawaii, so the water wasn't quite as warm.  Even with a rash guard, I reluctantly got out to warm up after about an hour.

Julie seemed to get comfortable on the rocks, while I somehow managed to cut my legs, so she warmed herself like a nesting Great Auk, while I took a second swim, wearing my watch so I wouldn't miss our scheduled departure time.  I got out with 15 minutes to spare, and five minutes later, Felix steered our boat toward the rocky coast to pick us up from what proved to be another great excursion.