Cabo San Lucas, Baja California
A desert is a desert for the absence of rain. Long periods go by with no rainfall at all. Annual plants that germinated after the last rain event complete their life cycle and exist in the desert only as dormant seeds lying invisible in the sere soil. The leaves of the drought-deciduous shrubs and trees dry up and fall off, leaving bare stems to wait for the rain to return. Evergreen cacti shrink in diameter as the water stored in their succulent stems is gradually exhausted. They can survive years without rainfall, but persistent drought interrupts growth and leaves scars in the form of growth constrictions. Statistically, the region of the northern Gulf of California receives its rain in the winter; the Cape Region of the southern Peninsula receives tropical rains in the late summer; and the middle Peninsula may receive rain in winter or in summer. But desert plants don’t grow on statistics; they grow on rain. Rainfall is an improbable event, but when it comes it brings life to the desert.
Overnight the Sea Bird moved south toward the southern tip of the Peninsula. We awoke to a gentle mist falling on the sea, and on us. Our morning was spent in search of marine mammals. We were rewarded by the spectacle of breaching humpback whales throwing their enormous, thirty-ton bodies entirely into the air and returning to the water with a giant splash. We also caught sight of a group of spinner dolphins performing the aerial acrobatics from which they take their name.
Our afternoon was spent in Cabo San Lucas, at the tip of the Peninsula, and that gentle mist had become a steady downpour of the sort that brings life to the desert. Drainage channels that are dry and dusty for most of the year were suddenly filled with water. The concrete arroyos of the streets of Cabo San Lucas were raging torrents carrying two feet or more of sediment-laden water. Undeterred we headed out, some to shop for Mexican silver and art at the finer galleries of Cabo San Lucas, some to seize our final opportunity for snorkeling, and the group above to conduct a study of the effect of persistent rain on the visibility and behavior of desert birds. We expect that, long after our departure, the effects of this rainfall will be evident as green returns to the desert. Rainfall is a felicitous event and should be welcomed.
A desert is a desert for the absence of rain. Long periods go by with no rainfall at all. Annual plants that germinated after the last rain event complete their life cycle and exist in the desert only as dormant seeds lying invisible in the sere soil. The leaves of the drought-deciduous shrubs and trees dry up and fall off, leaving bare stems to wait for the rain to return. Evergreen cacti shrink in diameter as the water stored in their succulent stems is gradually exhausted. They can survive years without rainfall, but persistent drought interrupts growth and leaves scars in the form of growth constrictions. Statistically, the region of the northern Gulf of California receives its rain in the winter; the Cape Region of the southern Peninsula receives tropical rains in the late summer; and the middle Peninsula may receive rain in winter or in summer. But desert plants don’t grow on statistics; they grow on rain. Rainfall is an improbable event, but when it comes it brings life to the desert.
Overnight the Sea Bird moved south toward the southern tip of the Peninsula. We awoke to a gentle mist falling on the sea, and on us. Our morning was spent in search of marine mammals. We were rewarded by the spectacle of breaching humpback whales throwing their enormous, thirty-ton bodies entirely into the air and returning to the water with a giant splash. We also caught sight of a group of spinner dolphins performing the aerial acrobatics from which they take their name.
Our afternoon was spent in Cabo San Lucas, at the tip of the Peninsula, and that gentle mist had become a steady downpour of the sort that brings life to the desert. Drainage channels that are dry and dusty for most of the year were suddenly filled with water. The concrete arroyos of the streets of Cabo San Lucas were raging torrents carrying two feet or more of sediment-laden water. Undeterred we headed out, some to shop for Mexican silver and art at the finer galleries of Cabo San Lucas, some to seize our final opportunity for snorkeling, and the group above to conduct a study of the effect of persistent rain on the visibility and behavior of desert birds. We expect that, long after our departure, the effects of this rainfall will be evident as green returns to the desert. Rainfall is a felicitous event and should be welcomed.
