Sportfishing
A few pictures are worth a few thousand words. Mino will take you out for as long as you wish. You can come in mid-day and head back out with other guests so everyone gets a chance to fish. Start early or start late. It's your vacation, do as you wish. Below is a fishing calendar for the Casa area.
The photos shown here are just a sample of the trophy-sized catches our guests have landed right off Casa Cardonal's shores. Mino has fished these waters his entire life and has been the grand prize winner of the El Cardonal Fishing Tournament that is celebrated each May in El Cardonal. We charge $60 an hour for the use of the boat with Mino as your captain and live bait costs $20 cash USD and is purchased offshore from bait tenders in the area.
Sportfishing at Casa Cardonal
Yellow Fin Tuna - Fantastic Fight
East Cape Fish Calendar
General guideline for Los Barriles & the East Cape
| Species | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Striped Marlin | F | G | P | P | P | P | P | G | G | G | F | F |
| Blue/Black Marlin | F | F | F | F | F | G | P | P | P | P | P | G |
| Sailfish | F | F | F | F | F | G | P | P | P | P | P | G |
| Dorado | G | G | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | G |
| Yellowfin Tuna | F | F | G | G | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | G |
| Wahoo | F | F | F | G | G | G | G | P | P | P | P | G |
| Roosterfish | F | F | G | P | P | P | P | P | P | G | F | F |
| Sierra | P | P | P | G | F | F | F | F | F | G | G | P |
| Pargo/Cabrilla | G | G | P | P | P | F | F | F | F | F | F | F |
| Amberjack/Yellowtail | P | P | P | P | P | G | F | F | F | F | F | P |
Pool / Jacuzzi / Beach
Infinity Pool
Pool / Jacuzzi / Beach
The Heated Infinity Pool with a large shallow apron is excellent for adults and small children. You might find yourself staring out across the Sea of Cortez at the whales passing by all day.
The Large Jacuzzi Hot Tub is perfect for an evening wind down before a good night's sleep.
The beach is so quiet. You can walk for miles and never see but one or two other people on your journey. Or maybe a horse or cow. The shelling is excellent.
The Sea of Cortez is often calm and very swimmable. There is no rip tide even in windy conditions. Water shoes or boots are recommend to walk across the line of stone along the shore. At times, the Sea of Cortez is even warmer than the pool.
Kayaks & Stand-Up Paddle Boards for your use
Fleet of 6 kayaks and 4 SUPs
Snorkeling
Masks, snorkels and fins in all sizes are available for your use. The nearby reef just north of the Casa is excellent snorkeling. Just a 1/2 mile walk or a 15 minute Kayak brings you to a living reef and a 50 minute boat ride with Mino gets you to the uninhabited Isla Ceralvo with a reef that rivals the snorkeling found in Cabo Pulmo's National Marine Park.
Below is a YouTube video of the local reef and its sealife. The opening scene is the beach 1/4 mile north of the Casa.
Shuffle Board & Ping Pong
The Casa has an outdoor shuffleboard area and a ping pong table in the back patio area.
To play shuffleboard, the player uses a stick (tang), to push disks (biscuits). The objective is to place the disk within the scoring zone at the far end of the court (sending the biscuit). To score the biscuit must rest completely within the small triangular tip zone without touching any part of the borders. If it stops in the peak triangle it is worth ten points; completely within the trapezoidal second tier of the triangle, it is worth eight points; and completely within the trapezoidal third tier of the triangle, seven points. If the biscuit lands in the large, rearmost and also trapezoidal area "10 Off" area, it scores as minus ten points.
Shuffleboard is played in matches of ten frames (a frame is both players or teams taking their turns by tossing four biscuits.) The basic strategy involves deflecting the opposition's biscuits out of zones with a positive value, and increasing one's own points by landing disks into areas of a high point value. A note of caution, youth is not an advantage in this game. Another way to play is to continue playing frames until the winning team reaches 73 points.
Sea Life
The sea life found in the Sea of Cortez is abundant and amazing. Whales parade past the Casa from January through March. They can be seen from the Casa or up close in the Super Panga. I have even taken a paddle board into a school of whales several hundred yards off shore. Mobula Rays arrive by the hundreds of thousands in March and April. They are a close cousin to the Manta Ray. They leap into the air and belly-flop back down. A large school sounds like popcorn popping in the distance. They do not bite or sting so kayaking out to them is great fun. Pelicans, frigates, turkey vultures, herons and hawks are common year round. Sealions live of the south tip of Cerralvo Island, dolphins often come to play in the Super Panga's wake. Sea turtles lay their eggs in the beach in front of the Casa each year. And you can snorkel with the whale sharks with an excursion to La Paz. The sea life is what amazes me most about the Casa.
Sea Life at Casa Cardonal - Sea of Cortez
Humpback Whale just offshore of Casa Cardonal
Excursions
Octavio's transportation company, Turispancho, offers a variety of excursions including:
- Swimming with the Whale Sharks in La Paz,
- Swimming with the sealions on Isla Espirito Santo,
- Snorkeling in Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park,
- Whale watching in Bahia Magdalena