Lots happened today-Jan 21st

I was awakened this morning with the sound of a vehicle driving up this (essentially) pedestrian walkway outside our apartment.

Caro was already on the beach reading her book and as I looked out the front door to see a Navy vehicle had driven up. I saw two navy guards with machine guns standing at the steps down to the beach. Hmmm  I thought-protecting the tourists, nice!  Soon afterwards however about 40 naval personnel came marching down the walkway with some of them carrying a large zodiac; going past me and onto the beach (and requesting that Caro move to the side to give them the whole area). There were guards on both ends of the exercise area and for the next 90 minutes the men split up into three groups and rotated through various swimming and/or zodiac maneuvering programs. Turns out this is weekly exercise time to keep the men in shape.

Later in the morning a ship horn started blowing constantly in the port area, and sirens started up non-stop. The naval yard is there as well so I am not sure if this is part of a training scenario or not. Anyway nothing appeared to come of it

We  spent the afternoon around our place, some of the time chatting with a couple from Burns Lake BC who are in another of these apartments. They are here until March 8th so we will see them often. The other two couples here are from Quebec and they are friendly but I think are uncomfortable speaking English or Spanish so other than waves and hello's we don't have contact with them.

We watched a whale in the bay for quite a while. It was at least 1/2 km off shore so our view wasn't great but we were able to see parts of the back and the flukes numerous times.

We decided to order Huachinango fish from the beach front restaurant. They brought the fried fish (with rice and salad) right to our place. I believe we may have been their only customers today as the beach was mostly deserted.

As sunset was coming on we walked on the beach towards the entrance to the port about 10 minutes south of us. We caught a lucky break as a huge container ship was just leaving (pretty sure I saw this one come in yesterday).

Today was 30 degrees but seemed to be easier to handle. Either the humidity was lower or we are acclimatizing. As I write this we are enjoying the veranda,the freshening sea breeze and the sound of waves lapping on the shore.

The photo above shows the steps to the beach and 15 steps behind that (and across the walkway/occasional vehicle access ) you can faintly see our blue inflatable mattress. The restaurant can be seen on the left hand side of the photo.