Isla San Marcos, El Golfo de California
What is blue, is found above the water of the Gulf of California, and has two holes on the top? In the morning it was a kayak, gliding gracefully over the water of a small inlet on Isla San Marcos. Our morning was dedicated to self-propelled water sports – snorkeling and kayaking. In kayaks launched from a sandy beach we were free to go at our own speed and in directions of our own choosing, some to poke along the seashore, others to gaze up at the geology of the island. (It is the only island of the Gulf to support commercial development: a gypsum mine.)
Following our kayaking adventure, or perhaps instead, many of us slipped into the realm of myriad colorful fishes, sea stars, and Gorgonian soft corals waving delicately in the current. As we peered beneath the water surface so, too, did underwater specialist Iliana Ortega with SCUBA and an underwater video camera. Later, at evening recap, Iliana shared her pictures of Cortez and king angelfish, Cortez and giant damselfish, sergeant majors, and the gender-bending Cortez rainbow wrasse in which a female can change into a “super-male”.
During our morning activities the wind picked up from the north. Fortunately, this gave us a “following sea” as we continued to the south, but it whipped up the surface of the sea to the point that our expectations for whale sightings were not high. But the second answer to the question posed above …? A giant female blue whale, with clouds of vapor rising up into the wind from the paired blowholes atop her head. She was accompanied by her small calf less than a year in age. (Small for a blue whale, the largest living animal and, to our knowledge, the largest animal that has ever lived! At birth blue whales are longer and heavier than a Zodiac!) Somehow Second Officer Tina Davis managed to turn the ship in the heavy seas, sacrificing only a few pieces of glassware to give us superb views of this enormous yet consummately graceful animal. Blue whales occupy all of the world’s oceans, but at a small fraction of their abundance prior to commercial exploitation. The whales seen here belong to a population that ranges from California Alta to Costa Rica – a population that seems to be increasing slowly. We can be cautiously optimistic that blue whales will remain to delight and enthrall visitors to the Gulf of California.
