Isla Santa Catalina & Gulf of California
One talks about the weather incessantly. At home or away, with friends or with strangers, the topic is a conversation opener or a realm of familiarity upon meeting. To say “we hid from the wind,” is then understood by all but it takes a sailor to comprehend that it wasn’t the breezes ruffling our hair that caused us concern but the frosting of white that danced on the top of the waves that made some wish for relief. The south western shore of Isla Santa Catalina became our refuge for the morning and as we played, the expected calm of the Gulf of California returned.
The sun slid down the steep escarpment of the Sierra de la Giganta painting her face with a rosy glow. Gold washed over the cactus covered slopes surround Bahia Elefante on Isla Santa Catalina as early risers plied the shores to capture the shades of dawn. Whether hiking, strolling or snorkeling one could not help but be awed by the massive size of all the vegetative specimens winding down the arroyos and marching along the granitic ridges of this island.
The Sierras remained with us all afternoon, a hazy gray silhouette to our west, the boundary of our world. As whitecaps became a rarity, the residents of the watery world were all that broke the surface of the sea. Short-finned pilot whales blew rainbows all around. Their strange bulbous heads and plumb dorsal fins appeared and disappeared, periodically seeming to escort us north and frequently distracting us from our course.
And then in the distance something different was spied. Tall and straight, a misty geyser-like column hung in the air. A blue whale! No, two of these massive leviathans stopped us in our tracks. As the sun bounced on the crest of the Sierra’s and cast its golden carpet across the sea, water cascaded from the long mottled blue-gray backs taking on the shades of sunset. Suddenly the backs no longer rose and fell with anticipated rhythm. A pectoral flipper waved. The corner of a tail fluke broke the surface and an expanded pleated throat was seen. The whales were feeding beneath our bow!
But even the clicking of cameras could not halt the coming of the night. The amber glow that had edged the darkening Sierras became only a memory as we sailed away.
