Los Islotes & Bonanza Bay
Incessant sounds of barking, screaming, and scratchy howling floated through the air from the beautiful pinnacles of Los Islotes. These small islets are home to about 200 California sea lions during winter. When you first gaze out at their forms draped upon rocks like discarded rolls of carpet, it’s easy to get the impression that these are a bunch of slackers spending their lives loafing all day in the sun, but that is far from the truth. Finding and catching food is not all that easy. Studies show that when they feed they dive from 300 to 550 feet and stay submerged 4.5 to 5.7 minutes long, with some going up to 1050 feet and staying over 10 minutes. Their foraging success rate is less than 70% of their dives. Females may search for food from 13 hours to 2.7 days and up to 50 miles away before returning for a well deserved rest.
Our morning was first spent cruising around in Zodiacs, enjoying sea lion antics and observing birds. We watched the blue feet of boobies march in place, frigatebirds soar then occasionally chase other birds and saw the blue eyes of Brandt’s cormorants study us skeptically. There were even bright red eyes staring out from the eared grebes shown in today’s photo. These form groups of tens of thousands in the Salton Sea during winter in California and are common in flocks of hundreds in the Sea of Cortez by spring. They dive to about 20 feet and hold their breath for less than a minute. It seems unusual to have more than an hour of our trip go by without seeing them.
Later in the morning we snorkeled. One of the highlights was watching a sea lion pup climb up the ladder of our snorkeling boat, stop at the top, and look at us as if it was waiting for a towel.
The long crescent beach at Bonanza Bay spread out before us like welcoming arms. We quickly set up kayaks and had the afternoon to paddle, explore on our own or go on one of several guided hikes. The temperature was ideal for hiking, and people spread out in all directions. We enthusiastically embraced the afternoon.
First a barbecue dinner was consumed during a beautifully colored sunset, and then we sang around the campfire. It was a day full of satisfying activities that started and ended with music.
Incessant sounds of barking, screaming, and scratchy howling floated through the air from the beautiful pinnacles of Los Islotes. These small islets are home to about 200 California sea lions during winter. When you first gaze out at their forms draped upon rocks like discarded rolls of carpet, it’s easy to get the impression that these are a bunch of slackers spending their lives loafing all day in the sun, but that is far from the truth. Finding and catching food is not all that easy. Studies show that when they feed they dive from 300 to 550 feet and stay submerged 4.5 to 5.7 minutes long, with some going up to 1050 feet and staying over 10 minutes. Their foraging success rate is less than 70% of their dives. Females may search for food from 13 hours to 2.7 days and up to 50 miles away before returning for a well deserved rest.
Our morning was first spent cruising around in Zodiacs, enjoying sea lion antics and observing birds. We watched the blue feet of boobies march in place, frigatebirds soar then occasionally chase other birds and saw the blue eyes of Brandt’s cormorants study us skeptically. There were even bright red eyes staring out from the eared grebes shown in today’s photo. These form groups of tens of thousands in the Salton Sea during winter in California and are common in flocks of hundreds in the Sea of Cortez by spring. They dive to about 20 feet and hold their breath for less than a minute. It seems unusual to have more than an hour of our trip go by without seeing them.
Later in the morning we snorkeled. One of the highlights was watching a sea lion pup climb up the ladder of our snorkeling boat, stop at the top, and look at us as if it was waiting for a towel.
The long crescent beach at Bonanza Bay spread out before us like welcoming arms. We quickly set up kayaks and had the afternoon to paddle, explore on our own or go on one of several guided hikes. The temperature was ideal for hiking, and people spread out in all directions. We enthusiastically embraced the afternoon.
First a barbecue dinner was consumed during a beautifully colored sunset, and then we sang around the campfire. It was a day full of satisfying activities that started and ended with music.
