In the Sea of Cortez
The north wind was up in San Jose channel during the early morning hours but it didn’t affect our anchorage or our landing this morning on Isla San Jose. Soon after breakfast we were shuttled ashore in our go-anywhere Zodiacs to the beach at the mouth of Arroyo Encantada (the enchanted arroyo!). We spent the morning exploring this verdant wash cut into the west side of the island. One of the first things we noticed was that the ground was made up of granite rather than the extrusive volcanics of yesterday. This told us that we were now on the east side of the La Paz fault, an active fault that last flexed its rock-muscle with a destructive earthquake in the town of La Paz in 1964. The amount of greenery in the wash was astonishing and we were able to identify many of the beautiful flowers, trees and shrubs as well as tracks of ring tails, crabs, ravens, herons and a variety of the little mammals and lizards. One lizard, a black-tailed brush lizard, was groggy enough in the cool of the morning to be caught and inspected at close range. This was a young male in full breeding regalia with the yellow-orange throat and the beautiful blue belly patches along with the hemi-peni that our naturalist just had to show us. Some of us were treated to a good view of the endemic Xantus’ hummingbird and also to a peregrine falcon.
While the Sea Bird was moving south to our afternoon anchorage at Isla San Francisco, Lee Moll gave a wonderful introductory talk on Baja California. Next came lunch and a delightful afternoon of snorkeling, kayaking and wandering the two-mile crescent beach or the nearby hills of this little island. The water was beautifully clear and warm and full of colorful fish for the enjoyment of snorkelers and kayakers alike, and reminded us of the azure shores of some tropical island paradise. As the sun set over the Baja peninsula we enjoyed a sumptuous beach BBQ prepared ashore by our hotel staff. Some of us stayed ashore and awake all the way to 8PM and sang some songs by the bonfire with our shipmates under the canopy of stars covering this desert island in the sea.
The north wind was up in San Jose channel during the early morning hours but it didn’t affect our anchorage or our landing this morning on Isla San Jose. Soon after breakfast we were shuttled ashore in our go-anywhere Zodiacs to the beach at the mouth of Arroyo Encantada (the enchanted arroyo!). We spent the morning exploring this verdant wash cut into the west side of the island. One of the first things we noticed was that the ground was made up of granite rather than the extrusive volcanics of yesterday. This told us that we were now on the east side of the La Paz fault, an active fault that last flexed its rock-muscle with a destructive earthquake in the town of La Paz in 1964. The amount of greenery in the wash was astonishing and we were able to identify many of the beautiful flowers, trees and shrubs as well as tracks of ring tails, crabs, ravens, herons and a variety of the little mammals and lizards. One lizard, a black-tailed brush lizard, was groggy enough in the cool of the morning to be caught and inspected at close range. This was a young male in full breeding regalia with the yellow-orange throat and the beautiful blue belly patches along with the hemi-peni that our naturalist just had to show us. Some of us were treated to a good view of the endemic Xantus’ hummingbird and also to a peregrine falcon.
While the Sea Bird was moving south to our afternoon anchorage at Isla San Francisco, Lee Moll gave a wonderful introductory talk on Baja California. Next came lunch and a delightful afternoon of snorkeling, kayaking and wandering the two-mile crescent beach or the nearby hills of this little island. The water was beautifully clear and warm and full of colorful fish for the enjoyment of snorkelers and kayakers alike, and reminded us of the azure shores of some tropical island paradise. As the sun set over the Baja peninsula we enjoyed a sumptuous beach BBQ prepared ashore by our hotel staff. Some of us stayed ashore and awake all the way to 8PM and sang some songs by the bonfire with our shipmates under the canopy of stars covering this desert island in the sea.
