Bahia Magdalena, Baja California Sur, México
After a calm and beautiful night anchored near Sand Dollar Beach, we awoke on board the M.V Sea Lion. At sunrise, we lifted anchor to sail southbound through the Hull Canal. From the bow we watched the sunrise. Thousands of cormorants flew from the sand bars, their main roosting areas, to start a new day on their feeding grounds. Since the very first minute of this day we started enjoying the spectacular show of nature.
Mid-morning the anchor was dropped near “El Barril” where we took Zodiac cruises to the mangrove channels inside Magdalena Bay. The tide had just begun to rise, the sand bars were still not covered by water entirely, and shorebirds were actively feeding on the invertebrates exposed by the low tide. It was still early, so we had the right conditions to have a great bird watching experience. While we traveled through the mangrove channels, we could see some of the interesting adaptations that each individual species of mangrove have in order to live in extreme conditions of salinity. We could also appreciate the importance of coastal lagoon ecosystems, the high productivity of nutrients that support a number of marine organisms in their early stages of development, before they move out to the open ocean.
After the Zodiac cruises we lifted anchor again and continued sailing through the Hull Canal. We spent much of the afternoon looking for more birds, beautiful dune landscapes, and just before we arrived at Lopez Mateos, we spotted our first gray whale cow/calf pairs.
The picture above shows a great blue heron as it took off from the shore. Great blues find excellent nesting sites in the mangrove ecosystems. Magdalena Bay has large nesting colonies or rookeries where herons and cormorants breed.
After a calm and beautiful night anchored near Sand Dollar Beach, we awoke on board the M.V Sea Lion. At sunrise, we lifted anchor to sail southbound through the Hull Canal. From the bow we watched the sunrise. Thousands of cormorants flew from the sand bars, their main roosting areas, to start a new day on their feeding grounds. Since the very first minute of this day we started enjoying the spectacular show of nature.
Mid-morning the anchor was dropped near “El Barril” where we took Zodiac cruises to the mangrove channels inside Magdalena Bay. The tide had just begun to rise, the sand bars were still not covered by water entirely, and shorebirds were actively feeding on the invertebrates exposed by the low tide. It was still early, so we had the right conditions to have a great bird watching experience. While we traveled through the mangrove channels, we could see some of the interesting adaptations that each individual species of mangrove have in order to live in extreme conditions of salinity. We could also appreciate the importance of coastal lagoon ecosystems, the high productivity of nutrients that support a number of marine organisms in their early stages of development, before they move out to the open ocean.
After the Zodiac cruises we lifted anchor again and continued sailing through the Hull Canal. We spent much of the afternoon looking for more birds, beautiful dune landscapes, and just before we arrived at Lopez Mateos, we spotted our first gray whale cow/calf pairs.
The picture above shows a great blue heron as it took off from the shore. Great blues find excellent nesting sites in the mangrove ecosystems. Magdalena Bay has large nesting colonies or rookeries where herons and cormorants breed.
