Bahia Santa Maria, Isla Magdalena
The sound of wind. These words conjure images in our minds dependent on past experiences. A week ago we may have painted a picture of forest green, conifers with rippling needles, branches swaying, blown by a gale. Today our world has changed. Now the breeze gently whistles in harmony with the melody of surf. Waves crashing on the smooth and sandy Pacific shore imprint a pattern in our brains wherein auditory and visual stimuli meld into one. The charcoal curtain draping the sky is drawn back ever so slightly to send shafts of light earthward, converting the sea and shore to a silver scene. A week of memories are synthesized, prioritized and savored as we stroll the shores, lost in our own selves and yet connected by experiences shared and in the sharing still.
Our day today started with gray whales, intimate moments with a cow and her calf. Here in the nursery of a mammal so unlike ourselves, the contact between mother and child was as tender as any embrace bestowed by our own race. And we as strangers were allowed to observe.
The lagoon closed in, constricted by shifting sands and colonized by mangroves. Our passage south carried us through this other nursery of the seas, a home to a plethora of birds taking advantage of the bounty sheltered in the tangled aerial roots of these saline tolerant trees.
As the light of day darkened into gray we climbed the dunes once more. Here life was subtle. Mats of sea purslane and sand verbena captured the shifting sands, forcing the grains into rounded hummocks for a brief moment in geologic time. Armored wolfberry shrubs hid burrows and tracks. Tubers of devil's claw hoarded water, waiting for the perfect combination of moisture and temperature to send its lush leaves forth. And finally there was the beach, long and arching and littered with signs of life from the sea, with sand dollars and shells and bones of the past. Here the surf crashed at the end of the day and the end of our voyage.
The sound of wind. These words conjure images in our minds dependent on past experiences. A week ago we may have painted a picture of forest green, conifers with rippling needles, branches swaying, blown by a gale. Today our world has changed. Now the breeze gently whistles in harmony with the melody of surf. Waves crashing on the smooth and sandy Pacific shore imprint a pattern in our brains wherein auditory and visual stimuli meld into one. The charcoal curtain draping the sky is drawn back ever so slightly to send shafts of light earthward, converting the sea and shore to a silver scene. A week of memories are synthesized, prioritized and savored as we stroll the shores, lost in our own selves and yet connected by experiences shared and in the sharing still.
Our day today started with gray whales, intimate moments with a cow and her calf. Here in the nursery of a mammal so unlike ourselves, the contact between mother and child was as tender as any embrace bestowed by our own race. And we as strangers were allowed to observe.
The lagoon closed in, constricted by shifting sands and colonized by mangroves. Our passage south carried us through this other nursery of the seas, a home to a plethora of birds taking advantage of the bounty sheltered in the tangled aerial roots of these saline tolerant trees.
As the light of day darkened into gray we climbed the dunes once more. Here life was subtle. Mats of sea purslane and sand verbena captured the shifting sands, forcing the grains into rounded hummocks for a brief moment in geologic time. Armored wolfberry shrubs hid burrows and tracks. Tubers of devil's claw hoarded water, waiting for the perfect combination of moisture and temperature to send its lush leaves forth. And finally there was the beach, long and arching and littered with signs of life from the sea, with sand dollars and shells and bones of the past. Here the surf crashed at the end of the day and the end of our voyage.
