The moon leaves the sky and stars come out in full brightness. Star gazing is a prime activity as long as you can keep your eyes open. We enjoy checking out some of our favorite constellations. The wind seemed to die during the night, one could still hear the waves hitting the shore, but not with as much force. Back to a yellow decision, proceed with caution. We packed up some and had breakfast and then did another walk to the beach to do another wind check.. A walk to a higher point gave us reading of 20 knots. This time the decision was easy to make. We are staying here. Since we were up, it made sense to check out the birding potential. We did not have to go far, the beach near our tent had a little flock of semipalmated plovers and snowy plovers. As if on cue they all departed and were replaced by a larger plover which we narrowed down to two possibilities. Winter plumage makes bird identification more difficult. As the larger plovers moved down the beach a group of sanderlings took over. It was amusing to watch the sanderlings and plovers interact. It was a great way to start the morning.As long as we are checking things out, a walk along the shore seemed appropriate. This did not last long as the tide was flooding in and the beach was not a place one could walk. We headed up to the dunes behind the beach. The area was quite dense with cacti and thorny bushes. When a sandy road appeared we were happy to take advantage of it. As we were walking along we heard numerous little chirp/clicks. As we stopped to see what was making the noise we saw numerous hummingbirds eating from the chuporosa or aptly named the hummingbird plant. They did not sit long enough for a photo, but were most likely Annas or Costas Hummingbirds. We often saw iridescent colors of red and purple. The road took us out to a point where we checked our wind gauge again and got steady readings in the high teens, low 20's. The sea had large waves with lots of white capping. Glad we were looking out and not paddling. We have our mini IPad with us and decide to see if we have any cell service. Sure enough the signal comes in and we have downloaded our emails, updated our weather report and did a quick chat with Ryan even sending a photo. This new way of communicating continues to amaze me. The tide is ebbing so we were able to make our way back to camp via the shore, Don stopped and pointed down. There at his feet was a perfectly formed Nautilus. All I could say was wow! Returning to camp we decided that eating was appropriate followed by a little tent time of reading and napping. Don could have maintained this activity longer, but Donna was ready to explore the lagoon. Hopping into our unloaded boats was a better than expected treat. The lagoon goes a good distance and plenty of birds were foraging for food, One sighting was a juvenile night heron and a white egret stalking lunch. Plenty of date palms were along the shore, most likely planted by the Jesuits, many years ago. Tonight we are having pizza covered in a tomatoe sauce that we had made and dried in Wyoming. Another topping is dried elk meat given to us by our Wyoming friends. Life is good, The wind does not seem to be abating so we might get to spend another day here!
