Gulf of California off Isla San Marcos
To the west, a rare fog bank shrouded the steep face of the Baja California peninsula early this morning. To the east, layers of thin clouds partly hid the rising sun, and then released it again. Heavy dew had settled on the deck over night. The sea was calm, ideal for appreciating the abundance of life in this expanding gulf as Baja California continues on its snails-pace course toward the northwest.
Distant dorsal fins rose and submerged again; large, rounded dorsal fins. Pilot whales! We moved slowly to position them on our starboard side. Low sunlight gleamed off their charcoal bodies. Sexual dimorphism is a key feature of pilot whales. The older males sport a huge, rounded dorsal fin, while those on the females and young are smaller and less bizarre. Among this pod were a few acrobatic bottlenose dolphins, leaping occasionally, but generally keeping pace with their larger, toothed cousins. Both are members of the dolphin family.
As we continued north, a massive school of common dolphins raced swiftly under a frenzy of wheeling and plunging seabirds. When dolphins move with determination they seem to spend as much time in the air as in the water. Theirs was an incredible race to exhaust and corral masses of herring or some other hapless schooling fish.
Shortly after breakfast, we found our fourth and fifth species of marine mammals for the day. A huge blue whale “fluked up” ahead of us as it sounded for ten minutes or more. This led us right to four equally impressive fin whales. Fins are sleek and speedy fish eaters, the fasted of all of the large cetaceans. They reach 70 feet or more, slightly smaller than the krill-eating blue whales, but are much less bulky.
The sun had burned off any trace of clouds as we reached the north end of Isla San Marcos. Kayaks snaked along a rock- and cave-strewn shoreline. Snorkelers peered down at colourful fish and invertebrates in the cool water, and hikers gained more respect for the forces of volcanic eruptions and the jumbled mixing of magma, rocks and dust that produce such geologically complex islands as San Marcos.
An evening adventure with icy Arctic images, taken by our National Geographic photographer Jay Dickman, ended yet another exceptional day.
To the west, a rare fog bank shrouded the steep face of the Baja California peninsula early this morning. To the east, layers of thin clouds partly hid the rising sun, and then released it again. Heavy dew had settled on the deck over night. The sea was calm, ideal for appreciating the abundance of life in this expanding gulf as Baja California continues on its snails-pace course toward the northwest.
Distant dorsal fins rose and submerged again; large, rounded dorsal fins. Pilot whales! We moved slowly to position them on our starboard side. Low sunlight gleamed off their charcoal bodies. Sexual dimorphism is a key feature of pilot whales. The older males sport a huge, rounded dorsal fin, while those on the females and young are smaller and less bizarre. Among this pod were a few acrobatic bottlenose dolphins, leaping occasionally, but generally keeping pace with their larger, toothed cousins. Both are members of the dolphin family.
As we continued north, a massive school of common dolphins raced swiftly under a frenzy of wheeling and plunging seabirds. When dolphins move with determination they seem to spend as much time in the air as in the water. Theirs was an incredible race to exhaust and corral masses of herring or some other hapless schooling fish.
Shortly after breakfast, we found our fourth and fifth species of marine mammals for the day. A huge blue whale “fluked up” ahead of us as it sounded for ten minutes or more. This led us right to four equally impressive fin whales. Fins are sleek and speedy fish eaters, the fasted of all of the large cetaceans. They reach 70 feet or more, slightly smaller than the krill-eating blue whales, but are much less bulky.
The sun had burned off any trace of clouds as we reached the north end of Isla San Marcos. Kayaks snaked along a rock- and cave-strewn shoreline. Snorkelers peered down at colourful fish and invertebrates in the cool water, and hikers gained more respect for the forces of volcanic eruptions and the jumbled mixing of magma, rocks and dust that produce such geologically complex islands as San Marcos.
An evening adventure with icy Arctic images, taken by our National Geographic photographer Jay Dickman, ended yet another exceptional day.
