Boca de Soledad
Boca de Soledad or ‘the mouth of solitude’ that opens into the Pacific Ocean lies just off the bow of the anchored National Geographic Sea Lion. This opening to the sea is littered with sand bars that shift from season to season and ocean waves that have traveled thousands of miles to break over them, toss up beautiful white curtains of salty spray, and crash into the lagoon to join the calm waters that support the 35-ton bodies of pregnant California gray whales.
These gray whales have swum, at five knots, 6000 miles to be here. They have navigated through countless perils and at last made their way through the gauntlet of the breakers into the protection of these quiet waters to birth their young. Only a few have arrived thus far, as their calendar is not defined by days and numbers as ours is. Theirs might be guided by the freezing over of the Chukchi Sea last October, or perhaps as late as November, effectively cutting off their food supply of benthic amphipods (small crustaceans living in the soft ocean sediments) and signaling them to trace once again the long coastal migratory journey begun by their ancestors.
This lagoon of changing and magical light is also home to a group of bottlenose dolphins and uncountable numbers of cormorants, brown pelicans and magnificent frigate birds that roost and/or nest in the mangroves that line much of the shoreline. Herons and egrets fish along the shore, while coyotes roam the sand dunes in search of a stingray caught unawares during the tide change or a jackrabbit in a moment of inattention.
Whether you enjoy this remarkable place by skimming over the water in a small inflatable boat or by tracking a coyote across the dunes to the sea, it would be difficult not to succumb to the charm of its wild inhabitants and the quiet lure of the desert landscape.
Boca de Soledad or ‘the mouth of solitude’ that opens into the Pacific Ocean lies just off the bow of the anchored National Geographic Sea Lion. This opening to the sea is littered with sand bars that shift from season to season and ocean waves that have traveled thousands of miles to break over them, toss up beautiful white curtains of salty spray, and crash into the lagoon to join the calm waters that support the 35-ton bodies of pregnant California gray whales.
These gray whales have swum, at five knots, 6000 miles to be here. They have navigated through countless perils and at last made their way through the gauntlet of the breakers into the protection of these quiet waters to birth their young. Only a few have arrived thus far, as their calendar is not defined by days and numbers as ours is. Theirs might be guided by the freezing over of the Chukchi Sea last October, or perhaps as late as November, effectively cutting off their food supply of benthic amphipods (small crustaceans living in the soft ocean sediments) and signaling them to trace once again the long coastal migratory journey begun by their ancestors.
This lagoon of changing and magical light is also home to a group of bottlenose dolphins and uncountable numbers of cormorants, brown pelicans and magnificent frigate birds that roost and/or nest in the mangroves that line much of the shoreline. Herons and egrets fish along the shore, while coyotes roam the sand dunes in search of a stingray caught unawares during the tide change or a jackrabbit in a moment of inattention.
Whether you enjoy this remarkable place by skimming over the water in a small inflatable boat or by tracking a coyote across the dunes to the sea, it would be difficult not to succumb to the charm of its wild inhabitants and the quiet lure of the desert landscape.
