Isla del Carmen
The eastern shore of Isla del Carmen is a rusty red and chalky white patchwork from the intermingling of volcanic and sedimentary deposits. At sunrise, the M.V. Sea Bird quietly lay at anchor just between two masses of these brightly colored rocks. Even more color splashed into the clear, dark water when the kayaks set off to skirt the pale, intricately sculptured sediments of old sea floor. We paddled into the cave in the photo and found fossilized sand dollars studding the ceiling as a reminder of eons long past. While paddlers plied the water, hikers wound back through steep-walled canyons to explore the desert.
By afternoon the ship reached another anchorage for a completely different adventure. As we boarded Zodiacs, bottlenose dolphins milled about the fantail then raced off to escort our rubber boats as they headed for a white-sand beach at Bahia Salinas. This site has a rich history based on extensive evaporation flats where humans have extracted high-quality salt for centuries. Jesuit missionaries first located this place in 1697, and in time it became a commercial operation regularly providing salt to Alaska for salting down skins of sea otters, to San Francisco in the United States, and also to places as distant as Japan and Greece. Once home to from 80 to 100 families, this place was abandoned in 1983, and the old buildings and ruins provided fascinating insight into the past. After visiting the town and the salt flats themselves, we returned to the ship to continue south.
As we motored out of the bay, a blue whale was spotted on the calm sea, and we maneuvered to get better looks. The spouts lingered in the still air, backlit by the sinking sun. What a fabulous surprise to an already amazing day.
The eastern shore of Isla del Carmen is a rusty red and chalky white patchwork from the intermingling of volcanic and sedimentary deposits. At sunrise, the M.V. Sea Bird quietly lay at anchor just between two masses of these brightly colored rocks. Even more color splashed into the clear, dark water when the kayaks set off to skirt the pale, intricately sculptured sediments of old sea floor. We paddled into the cave in the photo and found fossilized sand dollars studding the ceiling as a reminder of eons long past. While paddlers plied the water, hikers wound back through steep-walled canyons to explore the desert.
By afternoon the ship reached another anchorage for a completely different adventure. As we boarded Zodiacs, bottlenose dolphins milled about the fantail then raced off to escort our rubber boats as they headed for a white-sand beach at Bahia Salinas. This site has a rich history based on extensive evaporation flats where humans have extracted high-quality salt for centuries. Jesuit missionaries first located this place in 1697, and in time it became a commercial operation regularly providing salt to Alaska for salting down skins of sea otters, to San Francisco in the United States, and also to places as distant as Japan and Greece. Once home to from 80 to 100 families, this place was abandoned in 1983, and the old buildings and ruins provided fascinating insight into the past. After visiting the town and the salt flats themselves, we returned to the ship to continue south.
As we motored out of the bay, a blue whale was spotted on the calm sea, and we maneuvered to get better looks. The spouts lingered in the still air, backlit by the sinking sun. What a fabulous surprise to an already amazing day.
