A Day at the Beach

PJ has some swelling at her Achilles’ tendon. It happened last year from too many miles on the bike. We’re guessing it’s the constant traveling up and down the stairs that has aggravated it. She decided to stay off it as much as possible today. I took the dogs for a walk up the hill to do their business, then we went out to the beach and jumped in the water.

The ocean was glassy and calling out for me to come swim. I dropped off the dogs, grabbed my goggles then went down to hop in the ocean. Ran into Bob at the water’s edge feeding his fish entrails to the frigate birds. A flock of them whirled around us coming close enough to touch. He had gone out on the panga overnight with the locals catching some triggerfish, pargo and squirrelfish. Perfect timing for me to swim out through his chum and meet any large predators he may have drawn in to the near shore waters. I swam down to the middle of the bay then turned around and swam out to the point. Twenty five minutes total, probably just shy of a mile. 

Feeling invigorated as I walked back towards the tower, I ran into Tom from downstairs walking to the beach. He was on his way to La Parota two doors down to rent a stand up board from the restaurant guy. I’ve been wanting to give it a go, so I joined him and we grabbed a couple of paddle boards and paddled around out front. It took me a while to get it figured out but in the end I was able to stay up for a stretch though standing rather awkwardly and working to keep the side to side balance. We played around for about 45 minutes which was just about right for me.

PJ had gone to town, so I relaxed on the sky deck and made a toasted pb&j on the last of the bakery loaf of bread from the farmer’s market. Read my book then played guitar for quite a while as PJ arrived home with a new reed curtain that she used to hide the water heater replacing the mat that was there which we now put at he door to the bedroom.

We took a nap and around 3:30 PJ left for town to meet up with her friend to go the meeting in Sayulita. They bussed it over allowing PJ to get a better idea of the lay of the land. Meanwhile I took the Walden surfboard I bought back in Hatteras out and paddled around in the mush burgers at the point. Couldn’t really find enough juice to get a decent ride. It was good exercise though and it was fun just paddling around.

I sat around on the beach talking to Barb, Brian, Larry and Pam for a bit before heading up to rinse off. The dogs and I walked all the way into town hoping to catch PJ coming from the bus stop but our timing didn’t work out. She arrived home not long after we got back then I cooked up the snapper filets we’d gotten from Bob the other day. Sautéed in butter and garlic. Add some carrots, fresh avocado and beans and it made an unreal dinner. Tired in a good way that only a day at the beach can bring about.