Layover day on Punta Prieta, April 8th 2009.

On our first layover day we finally took the time to cook a big breakfast. We had eggs and leftover rice in tortillas for a first course. Andrea Wolf had picked up supplies on the drive down and bought me both wheat and corn tortillas. I prefer the wheat ones because they last longer. Most of the corn ones were crumbling apart and drying up already. One of Doug Hamilton’s favorite foods is chiliques. This is a dish designed to use up old stale tortillas so that nothing goes to waste in an efficient Mexican household. So for our second course I tried making chiliques without a recipe. Doug added some chopped up chorizo, which should make anything rich, salty fatty and spicy. I fried them together in olive oil until the tortillas started to brown. Then added some mild salsa for the last minute of cooking. From the contented noises Doug made while eating, I conclude my first attempt at chiliques was a big success. My frugal mother would be proud that I made something good out of some old material that others would have tossed out.

I found some shade behind a rock near the water, napped, finished reading a book and wrote in my journal. Manuel the pescadero came back early with a mountain of fish so we had fish tacos for lunch and fried fish for dinner. I tried to make ceviche with some of the fish, but apparently did not put enough lime juice in. It went bad. My frugal mother would be disappointed.

Around noon the sky clouded over and made going for a walk more pleasant so Doug and I hiked up behind the beach. Then the sun came out and made us all hot and miserable again. I put on my dive skin and immediately felt better. I went snorkeling for a while even though we were not in a great dive spot. Thinking about it, I decided I would have been happier paddling all day long than lazing about in camp.