We couldn't be more fortunate. Dex and I have found ourselves staying a couple extra days in San Carlos, beautiful, well, everything and great hostesses.Crossing the border into Mexico was one of the big milestones on the journey that I was sweating over. In all the research I had done prior to embarking on this trip, border crossings and the hassles they entail had been prevalent in almost everybody's stories of their travels by motorcycle. Naturally, I had some anxiety concerning our paperwork and the cooperation of border officials. I'm happy to relay to you that is was all for naught. The people we dealt with at the border crossing in Nogales were as kind, helpful and overall very pleasant people to deal with. I had intended to buy motorcycle insurance online prior to the crossing and just didn't get it done. This was not an issue and I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful the insurance shop attendant at the border was. He and I had a very pleasant chat about our planned destinations whilst he processed paperwork and he even saved me $50 over the best rate I could find online when all was said and done! Had to make 2 trips for photocopies which cost us a tiny bit of time, that was completely my fault, and it still only took about and hour and a half to be on our way, all of our bases covered for the entire duration of out stay in Mexico, in one stop. All that anxiety over border crossing is already beginning to wane.

So we made it through out border crossing far easier than I imagined and we were on the road to our first destination, San Carlos. We had initially intended to make Guaymas or first stop, and I am happy to say things turned out for the best that Guaymas didn't work into the cards. (This is where it starts to starts to sound too good to be true.) We were fortunate enough to secure a spot to stay on Couchsurfing.com with a retired expat and her daughter. To be honest, an expat, her daughter, Anastacio a Mexican national that had been deported after 31 years of living illegally in the US, two younger ladies who Christine had befriended previously on a retreat, Dexter and I have been living harmoniously for 3 days now!
There is plenty of room for everyone at the house but there's only two bedrooms and they have their own separate a/c units. Suffice to say that Dex and I have not garnered enough rank to have one of the air conditioned sleeping quarters; however, it is cool enough at night that we can sleep fairly comfortably.
Our hosts have been so very gracious and I have decided that I would take it upon myself, as my role in the household, to make sure everyone is fed. Cooking is, after all, one of my passions. My first thought upon arrival was Gazpacho. What could be more appropriate for a hot summer day in Mexico than a bowl of Gazpacho? Gazpacho is one of the recipes that I love and have been working on perfecting for a few years now and it did turn out well. My next idea was Ceviche and the fact that we were staying at a house on a bay in the Sea of Cortez was certainly helpful. Anastacio has a good friend at the fishing village right down the road and assured me he could get us a good deal on some fresh seafood. I think we did pretty well. We brought home 4 kilos of freshly cleaned Baqueta and I was particularly enthused about the fact that they had a couple of octopus they had accidentally snagged that day! This was a challenge I was excited about. I was going to make ceviche with seafood I had never prepared before. I am happy to report that the ceviche was AWESOME! The octopus took nearly two hours boiling to get tender and I didn't serve the ceviche until the next day, which only gave it time to chill properly and the flavors to meld.
The best part of my seafood purchase and subsequent ceviche experiment was that I still had plenty of fish left over to make fish tacos the next night and I must admit, I had nailed it again.
Thus far in San Carlos we have gone snorkeling in the bay, tanned on the beach, explored Guaymas a bit on the motorcycle, ate at a local taco stand, hiked to a fishing village and generally bummed around the bay hanging out and chatting. The most interesting thing I think I've seen thus far is the bioluminescence when swimming the in the bay at night, very cool. I tried over and over to capture it with the camera but it just doesn't work.
It's been relaxing and fun hanging out here for a few days. Christine, our host, has been working every evening since we've been here but is off the next couple of days and has time to show us around some more. She has promised to take us to a spot to do some cliff diving today and we're excited!

A view of the neighborhood from the water.

View of the bay from the palapas covered patio on the house.

Chilling on Algodones beach.