Today we had a true Baja adventure. We docked early at Santa Rosalia. Here in 1868, Jose Villavivencio discovered azurite and malachite, both copper minerals. He sold his mineral deposit for a paltry 16 pesos. However, by 1885, a French mining company was extracting the copper ore, and a town of 12,000 souls was bustling. The Santa Rosalia mines operated until 1950 and were the second largest copper producing claims in Mexico. Poor Jose!
But we had no time morn his loss. We boarded coaches, and set off on Highway One. The road climbed steeply through a land born of fire. The Volcan las Tres Virgines and its forbidding black and red lava fields contrasted sharply with the deep azure sky. Cardon, elephant tree, torote colorado, pitaya dulce, palo adan, and other hardy plants struggled to get a foothold on the raw broken ground.
At the palm oasis of San Ignacio, we switched to vans for a bone-jarring, dusty ride to Laguna San Ignacio. At one point, we looked in relief at what seemed to be the calm waters of the bay, but soon discovered that it was only a mirage. Another half-hour and the real ocean came into view.
We broke into small groups for the pangas driven by Mexicans, who take people whale watching during the winter and spring and harvest clams, shrimp, and mullet the rest of the year. The lagoon is many square miles in extent with few nearby landmarks. Fortunately the boatmen knew exactly where to go.
In the lagoon, cormorants, surf scoters, brant geese, and common loons floated peaceably. A couple of bottlenose dolphins surfaced and sank in slow motion. All eyes searched for gray whales. Suddenly there was a small heart-shaped blow then another larger one next to it – a mother and calf pair. Slowly our boatman pulled along side, and we waited to see what the whales would do. They surfaced and blew a few more times then surprisingly came up right next to us. It was such a shock that some of us forgot to push our camera shutter buttons. But then they were there again and again. Motor drives whirred and people gasped.
A few us were very lucky and were able to actually reach out and touch the wet, inner tube-like skin of the gray whale. Why some whales exhibit this so-called friendly behavior baffles the scientist and delights the visitor. But even if one does not have such a close encounter, it is still amazing just to know that these great animals, hunted almost to extinction, seem to have forgiven humans for their folly. Although this smacks of anthropomorphism, whose heart and mind can’t be touched by such gentle, curious behavior in a wild beast and its young?
After returning to shore, we had a quick lunch and braced for the washboard road again. Margaritas in San Ignacio washed away the dust in our throats and eased some of the stiffness in our limbs.
Clouds had been building all day. And on our way back to the ship, the sky began to do magical things. Ralph called for a photo op of a most incredible sunset. Rippled clouds in the western sky were turning molten gold as streaks of lightning flashed through a thin veil of virga showers to the north. The dark silhouette of volcanoes lent an eerie backdrop to the dramatic scene. Just another extraordinary day in Baja!
But wait…just when we thought it was safe to go to bed, it was announced that squid were coming in to feed on fish drawn in by the ships’ bow lights. What a strange evening with these reddish darting cephalopods below us and an awesome electrical storm crackling across an inky black sky.
