Monday, December 31, 2012

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Cabo San Lucas, MEXICO!

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It’s hard to believe this… but this is our LAST port of call! –And what an amazing way to end it!

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Today we tendered to Cabo San Lucas Mexico to go snorkeling in the Sea of Cortez!

Quick facts about Cabo San Lucas (Cape Saint Luke), commonly called Cabo, is a city at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.

Archaeological excavations have shown evidence of continual human habitation in the area for at least ten thousand years.[2] When the first Europeans arrived, they encountered the Pericú people, who survived on a subsistence diet based on hunting and the gathering of seeds, roots, shellfish, and other marine resources. They called the location Yenecamú.

One more fact about Cabo: the plant life receives its’ water from a “mist” or “fog” that comes in almost every night.

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The Explorer’s crew were up before the sun today, as we had to “tender” in to port. This was amazing to witness. “Tendering” occurs when either the port is too small, too shallow or just plain old too busy to handle a vessel of our size. Cabo is one such port.

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First, we watched the crew un-band each “tender” from it’s birth aboard our vessel the Explorer.

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Then each tender is lowered down to the sea and the crew aboard each runs it around and makes sure it is functioning properly.

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We then had a quick breakfast and boarded the tender that brought us into Cabo.

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This was a bit tricky, as the sea was a bit choppy.

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The ride over took less than 10 mins. And the tenders were running back and forth all day long.

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Finny once again blended in with the locals.

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After we arrive on shore we boarded a bus and were driven across the pier to our ship for the day: The Sunderland!

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In fact we were on a sister ship. The actual ship Sunderland stayed in port as it was going out for a later cruise. -which herself was a cool vessel, having been built in the 1800’s and named for the town of Sunderland England.

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As we pulled out of port we were blown away by the amount of sea life! We saw several fishing vessels returning with their catch followed in tow by a flock of sea gulls, pelicans and A LARGE SEAL sitting on the back of many boats (the fishermen feeding hem left over catch)

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We sailed out past the very famous “The Arch”, or Lands End. The Arch is locally known as El Arco.

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We passed several fishing vessels on our way out of the cove.

It was cloudy at first –bit then cleared up.

THEN: IT WAS TIME!

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We put on our snorkeling gear and we were ready!

Leo jumped in first, then Finn!

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We dove down and saw schools of fish, a coral reef and some other marine plant life.

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We then swam in to a secluded beach and soaked up some sun and collected coral, rocks and sea glass.

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After a bit we put on our gear and snorkeled back to the ship, where we dried off and had lunch.

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HEY! THere’s OUR ship: The EXPLORER!

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We were then brought back to the dock and witnessed the tendering process again in reverse.

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Oh and we saw another seal in the harbor playing with a pelican.

A wonderful day! Cannot WAIT to return to CABO!

Safe Travels!

JKLM

🙂

Tonight: New Years Eve!

Next/Last Stop: San Diego, USA!