Visiting Stone Island and a Thanksgiving Day flood

On Sunday afternoon our daughter, Phoebe, became the first person to visit us here in Mazatlán. She flew in from New York for her Thanksgiving vacation, just a few days after her 18th birthday. To celebrate we brought her out to Isla de las Piedras (Stone Island) for a day.

I took a selfie on the water taxi!

Oscar is not a big fan of water, but once he was on the boat he seemed to relax.

Ok he's pretty nervous in this picture.

This is the port or "embarcadero" where you can buy the tickets. Round trip is $35 pesos a person (about $1.75).

A pelican swimming past. The port  is a pretty big and busy place with lots of barges and on certain days full of cruise ships. On Monday the water was very calm and it wasn't so busy.

Once out on the island we spent some time exploring.

I think these are vultures? Maybe? They had bald red heads and vulture beaks.

Walking through town.

Eventually we found a nice restaurant on the beach to eat at and get out of the sun.

Phoebe sharing stories of her months at school in New York.

This is one of a zillion coconut trees. Anyway we had an excellent day and found a peaceful place to spread Gigi's ashes, which was a bit emotional.

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, and we have reservations at a restaurant by the beach. Unfortunately the city is in a state of emergency. It's been raining all night and day and the city is literally underwater. Everything is closed!

The swimming pool in our building has overflowed.

The lobby is flooded.

And this is my water hating dog, begging to go back inside.

                                                 Still, he's rocking his raincoat!

       Anyway we stocked up at the Oxxo, practically the only place open, (even though some of their ceiling tiles caved in), and we'll be staying inside today as recommended. Hopefully we can get a new reservation for tomorrow.

        In other news I interviewed for a job as an English teacher at the Ven Lingua English Institute. The director has asked me work art projects into the lessons, so it should be fun! Teaching there won't be starting for a few weeks, which is good as then we have time to move in the next few days (Yay!) and settle in to our new place.