Our day started sailing close to an island called "Isla Carmen", where we stopped to watch a group of common dolphins; maybe a few hundred. We could even see some little ones, swimming next to their mothers. After breakfast we anchored to have a chance to go ashore for our morning activities. First we went kayaking, this is a great water sport where we all have an opportunity to have some solitude and enjoy the beautiful landscape. After kayaking we had a few hours before lunch for a nice hike at a wash called "arroyo rojo", which is nice place to be in contact with the desert. We saw different species of cacti; like the cardon, the organ pipe, senita, prickly pear, etc., and nice examples of iron wood and palo blanco. We all enjoyed a beautiful sunny and calm morning.
We had lunch on deck, and right after our midday meal, we were all warm and ready to get in the water for snorkeling. Lots of colorful fishes, like angelfish, wrasses, parrots and a great variety of marine invertebrates; sea stars, sea fans, urchins, sea cucumbers and finally I saw this soft coral, called "Robust Gorgonian' (Muricea californica). The best field characters for this coral are thick individual branches. I could even see the distinctive white polyps and was able to get a close up photo of the polyps. This soft coral lives at low intertidal reefs to about 100 ft or more and it is common to find colonies growing to heights of about 1.7 ft.
