Category Archives: Weather

Home Again ….

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Sunrise : Sea of Cortez

How can I ever forget the beauty of Loreto? After a four week sojourn, I sit again, next to the sea and her fragrance hypnotises me. Gentle breezes caress the surface and small wavelets kiss the shoreline, turning beach stones over and over as if in a dance.

A blue monarch butterfly, and then a gold, flit among the flowers and the fat limes ripening on the trees that have exploded with growth. A hummingbird whizzes past my face toward the ruby colored stamens in the planter.

Recent rains have turned the dry lanky peninsula into a carpet of green, so verdant that from the sky, one could be fooled into thinking this was an oversized island of the Hawaiian chain. The sand in my yard has become a palm nursery. Hundreds of sprouted seedlings reach their first and second leaves toward the sunlight.

All it takes is water to change everything in the desert.

Season of Clouds

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Sky on Fire

Humid & hot.

The weighted sky water of summer. A thousand wardrobe changes in the day (and that’s just the sky!).

Color palettes shift from frothy white to angry greys with blasts of orange and red and gold sprinkled between.

The wind carries them from the north east, from the south .. back around again from the west. It shapes them— along with temperature, pressure, underlying terrain — into ragged forms, soft cumulous curls, a streaking line of stratus.   Thunderheads build .. threaten .. and then simply drift away …

The season of clouds. The heart of summer in Baja.

Building into the Sky
Between the Clouds
Golden Arrow
Evening Display
Golden Heavens
Palms against the Evening Sky
Dark and Light
Dark Clouds over Isla Carmen
Clouds hover over Isla Carmen
Heavy with the idea of rain

Heaven’s Palette

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After the rain : and before the next. The sky breaks out her palette of colors beyond the brush and pigment. Hues and shades that catch in the throat with their beauty. A veritable cloak of golden light that beckons, woos, dances on the edges of the mind.

Under my feet, the sand, the desert – already paying hommage to the life gift of water from the earlier deluge. Everywhere the scent of moisture. Pools, small lakes of water. Arroyos that have found the sea after too many months of drought. The rushing waters sing with their ebb and flow …..

Flux & Flow

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21 June Sunrise

I love the weather!

What started as a sultry morning with still seas, has in less than 30 minutes, turned into a blustery morning. Soft winds, first from the west – unusual – clocked to the south, rounded to the east, turned to the north, and swung back to pour in from the south. Local weather station, El Jaral, shows a steady 20.9 KM .. White caps before 7:30 AM!

Except for the warm temperatures and the wind direction, more like a February morning … 30% chance of showers tomorrow!

So…. not a SUP morning, and decidedly not a good swimming, snorkeling, or fishing morning .. and even the beach walkers are hunkered down.

Life, like the weather : flux & flow.

Tsunami debris: Garbage wave could hit Hawaii, U.S. West Coast & Baja California

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The ocean does link us all,and whatever we toss into it, it simply floats through its cycles and currents. Think about her, before you toss random garbage, drain your car wash into the streets, or imagine that somehow, your actions don’t count …

Fukushima (global-adventures.us): Massive amounts of debris are floating in the Pacific Ocean; and between one and five percent of the garbage could wash up on the shores of Hawaii, Alaska, British Columbia, and the U.S. west coast. The ocean debris, estimated at 3.6 million tones, is a result of the magnitude-9 earthquake and the resulting tsunami in Japan (Global Adventures reported here). Several large buoys, possibly originating from Japanese oyster farms, already washed up on Alaska shores, and Nikolai Maximenko, a senior researcher and ocean current expert at the University of Hawaii, says that 0.9 – 1.8 million tons of debris could reach the islands in early 2013.

“In a year, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument will see pieces washing up on its shores; in two years, the remaining Hawaiian Islands will see some effects; in three years, the plume will reach the U.S. West Coast, dumping debris on Californian beaches and the beaches of British Columbia, Alaska and Baja California,”

read more ::: ”

via Tsunami debris: Garbage wave could hit Hawaii, U.S. West Coast « Global Adventures, LLC.

beauty where we find it …..

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Baja : Pacific Morning

For the uninitiated, there is little that can be said to fully express the beauty of Baja California Sur.  From the moment one leaves the populations of Colonet & San Quintin, makes a requisite gas stop in El Rosario, and heads into the heart of undeveloped land of cardon, bojum, cholla, poloverde, cirrius and more …  the heart slows, the shoulders drop, and the mind begins to embrace again that primal space of undeveloped land.

Mex One zigzags across the peninsula in undulating rhythms, following for the greater part, the easiest passage through rough terrain.  That translates to switchbacks, mountain climbs and descents, and arroyo crossings.  Wide plains, dry lakes and craggy rock piles – the spewn evidence of long-ago volcanoes litter the landscape.  I’ve stopped counting the trips. I never fail to be inspired.  I am always stunned by her beauty.

For those who are afraid to travel, I am sorry.  So much the greater landscape and less crowded roads for me.  While the horrors of the drug cartels are not to be ignored, the city streets of any major metropolitan area has its own body and assault count.  I feel safer in my home in Loreto than I ever did in the states.

The Pacific side teases with waves that follow distant swells.  Spots like the Wall, Shipwrecks, the local spots of Ensenada .. and of course, Pescadero, Todos Santos and Cabo San Lucas beckon surfers from across the globe.

The east coast, the beautiful bountiful Sea of Cortez, is filled with dolphin, sea turtles, fish of every color and size, rays and whales – blue, pilot, fin and orca.  Sunrises, sunsets .. kayaking, paddling, surfing, hiking, sailing, scuba diving, snorkeling .. exploring ..  magic.  To be with and surrounded by such beauty is to me – pure magic.
And then there are the people – beautiful kind warm family loving folks.

Food!  Beverages!  Music!  Dancing!  Camping under stars and/or a full moon. Yes : Baja : I love and dream of you always.

Rembrandt Skies

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Rembrandt Skies

Rembrandt Skies

The rain was more than I could have asked for. Dark ominous skies for two days – and then the drops, light as first and then a heavy downpour that came in spurts, but lasted through the night. In the morning skies that painters dream about.

The rains in the night cleared the air (not that it needed to be cleared) and in the morning, the fragrance of the desert freshly gifted was water was hypnotic – better than any perfume imagined.

We wait now – for the green cover that follows desert rains. The brown and seemingly barren desert will burst into a carpet of plant life that sprouts in celebratory response to moisture.

As for the skies … clouds dissipate and mornings revert to placid seas and clear dawn explosions of darkness to dawn.

Hilary pushing a lot of water …..

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Hurricane Hilary appears on track to leave most of Baja alone – unless she turns north early.  In which case, winds and heavy rains could batter portions of Baja that have seen no significant rain in over a year.  Surf won’t be particularly wonderful – onshore winds and tight spacing between swells … Oh, those magical powerful forces of nature that we have only the power to observe.

Hurricane Hilary