Isla Danzante

We spent the morning of the first day of our expedition sailing through the Gulf of California in search of wildlife. After a beautiful sunrise we began to see birds flying over the ocean. Brown pelicans, yellow-footed gulls and magnificent frigate birds were seen among others. From a distance, a small group of long-beaked common dolphins were located. For a moment, they joined the National Geographic Sea Bird to ride the bow and wake. Another very exciting sighting was a mysterious fin that moved along the water’s surface. At first we guessed it was a thresher shark, due to the length of the tail. Our captain maneuvered the ship to get a closer look, and suddenly the fin started moving towards us. We realized it was a very good size striped marlin that was swimming very close to the water’s surface.

For the afternoon, we disembarked on a majestic island located in the “Bahia de Loreto Marine Park”. Isla Danzante, or “Dancer” is surrounded by the most majestic part of the Sierra de la Giganta. This small island is also the perfect location to kayak, snorkel and to take short walks through this magnificent desert environment.

We started out with kayaking over the clear waters of the bay of Loreto, followed by snorkeling. We had a great experience looking at all the different marine life we found. One of the highlights was a large panamic green moray hiding under a rock. It was waiting for the night time to go out in search of an octopus for dinner. There were many schools of fish like sergeant majors, scissortail chromis, Limbaugh’s chromis and a very unusual sighting: a huge school of barracuda traveled by in perfect synchrony.