Life on the beach in Kino Bay, Mexico

This life of ours is truly grand - the choice to walk left down the beach or right, which type of seafood for supper, which birds to watch!

We entered Mexico on Nov. 21, took care of Immigration matters - Migracion visas, $25 each, vehicle import permits, $68 each plus a deposit on Visa. The hiway was magnificent, 4 lanes with shoulders, as good as back home. A far cry from last year. There are tolls, we have paid $28 so far, but worth every centavo! Our second night we arrived at Islandia RV in Kino Bay & would be happy to spend our entire winter here, if not for more exploring to be done. The folks who call this home for the winter, & a few fulltimers are very welcoming & friendly. We got in on a happy hour the first night & a Sunday lunch complete with DJ, music & dancing our second day. We are parked facing the ocean with a view of pelicans, gulls, shrimp boats, fishing pangas & of course lots of dogs. We have a French couple in the park  who bake bread & baguettes every week for sale, Mexicans who come thru the park selling fruit & veggies, some with seafood & someone with tamales almost every day (just finished beef & sweet corn ones for lunch). A short walk down the beach gets us to several places to eat & the "fish guy" with coolers full of shrimp, crab, fish & occ. lobster (all for less than $7 per pound.)

We spend our days bike riding, kayaking, walking the beach, bird watching. We kayaked out to the island twice to see the sea lions, blue-footed boobies, pelicans, cormorants & more. We got a bit too close to the sea lion colony & when their barking increased in volume & they all splashed into the water & proceeded to swim our way we headed for home, very quickly! Another kayak trip took us into an estuary, more birds - herons, egrets, etc & good areas for clamming. We brought back a good tub full, clam chowder soup for supper today.

We were happy to be included in the US Thanksgiving pot luck, so much good food, good company & a sunset to watch.

We did a day trip to Hermosillo, about 1 hour away, a city of almost a million people. Found the Mexican atlas we needed, Robin got a $5 haircut (shortest I have ever seen it!), got my picture on a cookie display with a Santa & were surprised by the fresh Christmas trees for sale (just like at home).

We have sorted thru our rock collection & left a bunch behind, we have decorated our area with sea shells & of course collected some to take home. The variety of shells here is the best we have seen.

We had a lovely visit with Chuck & Linda, good friends from Penticton who decided to head into Mexico this year for a visit with other friends.
Robin was put to work doing some carpentry for a neighbor to accommodate a new fridge. A bunch of us went out for fresh seafood, a place where you take your own alcohol because they don't sell it, someone even brought their own lime squeezer!
They do bingo here weekly in the oceanside clubhouse - Robin came along reluctantly, we paid $20  to play 2 cards each, 10 games plus a blackout. Go figure, he won one game & I won two - we took some good natured ribbing "Canadians go home" (everyone here is American) but we took home $62.
We watch the local fishermen & their kids, usually quite entertaining.

We had a nice rain one night, here in the RV park everything is sand so it all soaked in. We were surprised when we drove around town 2 days later to see the lakes on the streets & huge mud bogs on the dirt streets. Glad we will never see what a big rain can do!

Robin had a hermit crab "zoo" for a day, all sizes & shapes!

We went out for supper last night, overlooking the bay, watched the sunset. On the way back we came upon a Christmas parade, several floats with kids dressed up & they were throwing candy to the large crowd. Same as back home - police car to start & fire truck to end the parade, sirens blaring. As we sat outside back at the RV we heard one of the common loud speaker trucks. They drive around town advertising all sorts of things, most of which we can't understand. This one drove into the park, advertising something small, hot, delivered to your door - we stopped him & found out it was fresh, hot churros, complete with hot oil fryer in the back of his truck! Of course we bought a bag & stuffed ourselves.

This morning we watched dolphins out in the bay, soon its time for another beach walk. It will be difficult to leave this little piece of "heaven", but we will move on on Monday. More places to see, adventures to have.
We think often of our family & friends back home, hoping the winter is going well.