San Felipe: Day 6

I had planned to post this earlier, but every evening this week I have felt so drained and unable to spend the energy editing and posting photos. It's fun, but it can be tedious and very time-consuming. Also, I think the time of year just isn't my most productive. I may just try to post on weekends for awhile, and any weekday posts will be a bonus.

Day 6 was Thanksgiving. After the normal morning routine of breakfast and chillaxing al aire libre, we finally headed to the beach!

At first we just relaxed in the sun for awhile. My dad took a walk to learn more about the area and my mom napped (she was still lethargic from being sick, though she felt a lot better). I went swimming a couple of times.

We all watched fish jumping out of the water (I couldn't catch a photo, sorry!), but otherwise there wasn't a lot of sea life at this point.

I had been wanting a photo of a sandpiper, so I was happy to see one!

The tide was starting to go out and reveal the rocks. We all started to do a little exploring in search of clams (an old pastime when visiting this area).

We didn't see many live clams, but we saw a lot of other fun stuff, and I have a bundle of photos for you. First, a cute hermit crab. There were lots of these, but of course they would tuck their little legs in most of the time.

Then came the exciting discovery when my dad decided to flip over a rock (still in search of clams) and we saw an octopus! You can get an idea of his size based on the clam shell, which was probably the size of a quarter.

I raced to take pictures, but these little guys are fast. So then it became a fun activity for my dad to repeatedly flip over rocks so I could take several photos before the octopus was out of sight again.

Almost every larger rock had one or two octopuses underneath.

A couple of them squirted their ink upon being discovered, and my dad's leg got hit one of the times! He says it didn't hurt (I was afraid it would sting). I guess it's just to cloud the water so predators are startled and confused. I don't know, I'm not a marine biologist!

I remember when my niece L and I saw a giant octopus in the Newport science center, and they told us that it could squeeze through a hole with the diameter of a tennis ball (or a baseball?). I bet these guys could get through a centimeter, and I guess it's why they can hide under rocks.

This is the narrowed-down selection of photos. :)

Okay, we're done with those.

My parents are very helpful in assisting me with photos. :) Here's my dad pointing at a little crab for size-comparison.

Then he was able to catch one. So cute! And pretty coloring. You could make a color pallet out of that.

I forget what these little fish are called, but they are super camouflagey. My parents recognized the type of fish but I'm blanking.

There he is again.

A little snail. It's hard to catch these out of their shell.

This rock had all kinds of life on it, including this adorably weird starfish! It seems to be missing an arm.

Now I forgot what that thing is called, too. It's kind of snail-like in that it has the hard shell and soft body and it slithers slowly over the rocks.

I guess that's all the photos I took that day. It was a great time at the beach. I think all Thanksgivings should be spent on the beach looking at cool sea life!

After going home and relaxing/showering, we went out to dinner at a place my parents had been to several times. I had a pork chop dinner with a pina colada, and we all had flan for dessert. My mom was feeling much better after resting, I think, and her appetite was completely back for dinner. It was a good day.

One more Mexico post will happen sometime in the next week (hopefully), and stay tuned, because I'm doing a
♥ Valentine's giveaway ♥! :) I'll post about it soon (maybe tomorrow).