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Lisa and I went to Tankah Bay, Quintana Roo, Mexico for a week in February of 2006. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort Mayan Tankah, Freedom Paradise. It has recently changed ownership and had the name "Mayan Tankah" prepended. If you follow the maps in the previous link to the right, that is the stretch of beach I walked along while Lisa was in Tulum buying stuff. I made it to the headland between Tankah and Solimon Bays. At the headland, the barrier reef is at the shore so the full force of the waves can be appreciated. The air there was misty from the spray that was atomized in the air. The resort staff enjoy making animals from the clean towels and hibiscus flowers. It didn't hurt that we tipped our room staff every day. It is quite amazing what one can do with a few towels and flowers. The grounds had many iguanas during the day and geckos at night. The iguanas were used to people. There was still evidence of the recent hurricanes. The airport building had torn metal roof and siding on an unused wing. Some of the coral heads looked as if they had been tipped on their sides. The coral within the barrier reef wasn't completely alive. Whether this was caused by the hurrincanes or by the heating of the Caribbean Sea by global warming, I don't know. I was only outside of the barrier reef briefly. I didn't get a very good look at the corals there other than the ones in the breach of the reef. It wasn't calm enough and I wasn't very sure of the tide direction to feel very comfortable outside of the barrier reef. According to one of the dive operators on the bay, the best snorkelling in Tankah Bay is right outside of "our" resort just inside the breach in the reef. I could believe it. The patch reefs inside the breach had thousands of fish. Fish identification is much harder than bird identification. Many of the fish go through different life phases which look very different from each other. Also, many of the fish can rapidly (less than a second) change colour and markings to match their background and/or mood. I've copied two pages from my reef fish identification book (Reef Fish Identification, Florida Caribbean Bahamas, Paul Humann and Ned Deloach), which covers the Bluehead Wrasse. We saw quite of a few of these in all phases. Every time I went snorkelling, which was at least once a day, I saw something new. When I came in I would manage to cram a few more bits of information from this guide book into my head. We had two very notable sighting while snorkelling. One was an Spotted Eagleray. Unlike most times when we see one of these, this one just ignored us. We followed it while it searched for mollusks and clams. To do so, it works its snout through the sandy bottom. Its snout is quite flexible - not something I think of for fish - it would wrinkle and move like a pig's snout as it searched for food. It had a sharksucker attached to it. The other sighting was of a Hawksbill Turtle. We were following the inside of the barrier reef when we happened on it. The turtle just hung in the middle of the water watching us watch him. When we tried to get a little closer, he just turned a glided away. It always amazes me how clumsy we are in water compared to animals that we often think of as clumsy or slow moving. Snorkelling the inside of the barrier reef was interesting. The coral was in much better shape than the patch reefs in the bay. The inside edge had quite a steep side for 3m or so and a flat top. Since the waves were coming over it, one didn't have to worry about being pushed against the coral. Besides snorkelling in the ocean, one can snorkel and dive in cenotes. The Mayan Riviera is mostly limestone. Cenotes are cave systems that have been created by water running through the limestone. The roofs of some have fallen allowing access to them. We snorkelled in one that connected to the ocean by an underground tunnel. The water was brackish so had both salt water and fresh water animals. The most common fish looked like a guppy. There were also blue crabs on the bottom. The last legs of these crabs are flattened. They use them as fins for "swimming" and stabilizing in currents. This cenote provided us with the closest view of a green heron that I likely will even get. The herons didn't seem to connect these strange floating creatures with humans. They just ignored us as they worked their way through the mangrove roots. We were able to get within about meter of them. We did one touristy trip, which was to go to the Tulum Mayan ruins, which you can see in the aerial views about 2 left of our hotel. It isn't necessary to take a tour as it is easy to get to and has enough English signs describing the buildings. It was well worth the trip. We walked to Tulum after visiting the ruins. It took about 2 hours, which was longer than we expected, but being on vacation, it didn't matter. Besides, we got to visit the Tulum beach, which has very fine coral sand, and to see two groups of plain chachalacas. Tulum is a tourist town, but not a pushy one. It is small and friendly. On our walk to Tulum from the ruins once we got to a major road, there was a separate road for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. The main highway from Cancun to Tulum also has a separate road for bicycles. We saw both tourists and locals using bicycles and walking on these. Bicycle would be a nice way to get around. We figured out the Collectivo vans, although the name change (or my pronunciation) of the our hotel confused the first driver we had. I had to alert him that we had passed our place. They are less expensive than taxis for two costing about 1/2 or 1/3 of a taxi fare. We didn't do any serious birding, as you can tell by the shortness of my bird list. I managed a bit along the local roads early in the morning before breakfast or Lisa had stirred. There are quite a few birds that are endemic to the Yucatan pennisula. I didn't really realize this (or remember it) until opening up the Mexican bird book. One of these birds in the Orange Oriole. It is quite similar to the Hooded Oriole. I was back in Calgary by the time I realized that they were different. Luckily, I had taken a few pictures of the orioles. The ones in the pictures are the Orange Oriole. The other endemic birds that I saw are the Yucatan Jay, Yucatan Flycatcher, and the Yucatan Vireo. The resort fed the fish eating birds at 16:30 every day. One would see the pelicans, frigatebirds, and terns start to drift in just before 16:30. These birds managed very well without watches. Only the Royal Terns came to the free buffet when I had my camera. The Sandwich Terns stayed away. There was a family of osprey living just down the beach. They would drift overhead every day. The roseate spoonbills flew overhead on their way to and from swampy feeding grounds in the morning and evening. Their pink plummage would glow in the rising/setting sun. There were also lots of butterflies around. Some were relatively easy to photograph, others hard, and some impossible. Having a digital camera makes it easier to just snap away in the hopes of getting a decent shot. Not that all of these are truly decent, but they are mostly colourful. Our hotel was located on the beach. Behind it was mangrove swamp upto the highway. Beyond the highway was tropical forest. We didn't get a chance to explore the tropical forest. I've since read that a good way to do so is to go to one of the interior Mayan ruins. The forest around them is protected so has lots of life. The mangrove swamp didn't show any damage from the hurricanes. I guess that they have withstood many. Aside from mangroves in the wetter areas and palms in the drier areas, there were also at least two species of cactii. One is an epiphytic one with a square trunk that clasps its host. The other is a ground dwelling cactii. I find it interesting that these dry environment plants are thriving in a wet location. Unfortunately, I never made it to them when I had my camera, so pictures will have to wait until after our next trip. Some of the pictures have blurry spots on them. This is due to the build up of sand on my lens. I seem to have gone completely into vacation mode and forgot to clean my lens. I've decided to just leave them rather than to try to remove them. I don't think any of the images are that great, or if they are :-), then I'll clean them before printing or whatever. This site is best viewed using Netscape 7.x/8x or Mozilla Firefox. It should work for Netscape 4.x and Internet Explorer 5.x and 6.x. Please let me know if you have problems. | |||||||
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