Isla San Marcos
As we travel the landscape of Baja California we are navigating through a series of stories. Stories told by the shape of the landscape and the inhabitants we find on the islands.
This morning we woke near the island of Tortuga, its classic shape and our view of its caldera told us of its fire and brimstone birth as a volcano. For the afternoon we wandered an arroyo on Isla San Marcos. The deep shade offered by the Palo Blanco trees and lush growth throughout told us a story of abundant moisture. We found Cardon cacti being utilized as a trellis by a lovely blue flowering member of the morning glory family, which reiterated the tale of ample rainfall. Along the ground crawled a shiny blue-black tarantula hawk, flitting its brilliant orange wings as it investigated crevices and burrows. In order to complete its life cycle, this large Pepsis wasp needs to find a large spider, such as a tarantula, paralyze it, stuff it in a burrow, lay an egg on it, cap the burrow and with that ends the females maternal duties. The developing larvae eats the paralyzed tarantula and eventually emerges from the burrow as an adult tarantula hawk. A story of new life for the wasp, and a life ended for the tarantula.
A low tide this afternoon gave many of us the opportunity to investigate the inhabitants of the intertidal zone. These creatures tell a story of stress and survival in an area of twice daily desiccation and tidal inundation. Amongst the crevices and under small boulders lived sea hares, fat armed Bradley’s Sea Star, flower sea urchins, tunicates and cryptically- colored miniscule arrow crabs. A diversity of creatures evolving different adaptive strategies, each with their own story of survival.
In the evening we gathered in the lounge to share our stories of the day with our families and new found friends. The coachwhip snake found by Adrian’s hiking group seemed to stretch and grow in length as it worked its way towards becoming something between a yarn and a legend. These tales were interrupted by a group of Common dolphins swimming by our anchored ship appearing to “escort” a Fin whale which also swam by our gawking faces now pressed to the windows in the lounge.
After dinner, we repositioned the ship just off shore from the town of Santa Rosalia. Here we witnessed the squid fishing fleet in action. Pangas carrying two and sometimes three fishermen worked handlines at a furious pace jigging for and hauling in Humboldt squid. The waters were sprinkled with the glittering lights of a number of these boats under a near full moon, all fishing for the squid. Some of the fishermen came right up to our boat, perhaps our bright lights assisting in drawing their quarry to the surface.
We never know what to expect, and when we share the tales of our experiences in the Sea of Cortez our listeners may not be sure if fiction may have started to intermingle with the facts. If our stories seem incredulous, then you need to come and explore Baja California with us and see for yourself.
