During the night the wind came up strong from the north, and soon our planned morning anchorage on the eastern shore of Isla Carmen was no longer suitable. So we made a new plan, and headed around the southern tip of Isla Carmen to a seldom-visited landing site at a place called Punta Baja. As the ship pulled into this anchorage many of us were out on deck in the brisk winds to marvel at the scenic red hills rising behind the narrow bay (top photo). We went ashore to a beautiful white sand beach. Behind the beach an ancient marine terrace created a small rise backed by a nearly level plain sloping up to the island’s steeper hills. The low land here is limestone, a fossil reef formed during the Pleistocene when the ocean level was higher. Many fossilized shells protruded from the pale rocks along the shore. Hikers set off in different directions to explore parts of this large island. Photographers ambled along the low cliffs bordering the shore. The surrounding waters lay over a shallow sandy bottom, rendering the water a gorgeous aquamarine color with darker blue in the deeper channel that separates Isla Carmen from the Baja peninsula. The backdrop for this scene is the immense mountain range known as the Sierra de la Giganta. Our Expedition Leader, Ralph Hopkins, had a spontaneous idea and called the ship to ask if there was a volunteer to kayak across the shallow bay for the photographers. Soon a red kayak was paddling below the photographers giving a brilliant contrast to the blue-green bay (bottom photo).
In the afternoon we moved to nearby Isla Danzante, a steep and narrow island where few among the staff and crew had ever been ashore. We landed at the base of a scenic arroyo whose slopes were decorated with many organ pipe cactus and palo blanco trees. The view from shore back towards the ship was even more dazzling in the late afternoon light as the massive Sierra rose up only a few miles to the west. Some people hiked to a saddle between the island’s peaks overlooking the other side of the island and across the water toward Isla Carmen. Others chose to meander along the rocky shoreline peering up successive narrow canyons as the afternoon’s shadows lengthened across the landscape. As the sun set behind the Sierra de la Giganta, we boarded the Zodiacs to return to our ship for a peaceful night at anchor surrounded by innumerable wild desert peaks.
