San Jose Channel and Isla San Francisco
It’s 7 AM, and pre-dawn light is illuminating the grand Sierra de la Giganta mountains of the Baja peninsula. On the top deck of Sea Lion, a handful of us join LexSpa therapist Nancy for yoga and stretches. As sleepy muscles are gently encouraged into wakefulness, the sun peeks over the horizon in greeting.
While we are below eating breakfast, the bridge watch spots a large pod of long beaked common dolphins, and guides the ship near them. This is not the morning to linger over breakfast! We rush to the bow, and watch the graceful dolphins swim in front of the ship, then in our wake. At times, five or six of them break through a wave crest in perfect synchrony.
We spend the rest of the morning searching for larger cetaceans in San Jose channel. We are a little surprised to find a lone, young gray whale, swimming close to shore. We guess that the whale is one or two years old and 30 feet long - small compared to the adult females we’d seen in Magdalena Bay. This “little” (can 30 feet long really be considered little?) gray whale looks especially small as it swims just below the massive mountains of the Baja peninsula. Along the shore, fishing camps add accents of color to the scene dominated by brown mountains, dark blue water and mottled grey whale.
We spend the afternoon exploring Isla San Francisco. While some people kayak in the horseshoe-shaped bay, others among us take a strenuous hike to the top of a steep ridge, and a few people snorkel as well. Many of us walk behind the beach, across salt flats and to the shore on the island’s other side. There is an especially low tide this afternoon, so we look for creatures among and under the rocks in shallow water. In this intertidal zone we find numerous species of sea stars, brittle stars, sea cucumbers and sea urchins – the echinoderms dominate! We hold them with care and wonder, and then return them to their rocky homes, and their neighbors: colorful worms, slimy sea hares and delicate and beautiful nudibranchs.
While we have been playing, the Sea Lion crew has been busy arranging a delicious barbecue dinner ashore, complete with tiki lights, chairs around a bonfire, and wine and beer. After we eat, we pull our chairs closer to the campfire and listen to naturalists Sue and Adrian tell traditional stories about the origin of night and stars, and an Aztec story about the creation of moon. What campfire is complete without s’mores? The evening ashore lingers with many songs under the stars, and a Zodiac ride back with bioluminescent waves.
It’s 7 AM, and pre-dawn light is illuminating the grand Sierra de la Giganta mountains of the Baja peninsula. On the top deck of Sea Lion, a handful of us join LexSpa therapist Nancy for yoga and stretches. As sleepy muscles are gently encouraged into wakefulness, the sun peeks over the horizon in greeting.
While we are below eating breakfast, the bridge watch spots a large pod of long beaked common dolphins, and guides the ship near them. This is not the morning to linger over breakfast! We rush to the bow, and watch the graceful dolphins swim in front of the ship, then in our wake. At times, five or six of them break through a wave crest in perfect synchrony.
We spend the rest of the morning searching for larger cetaceans in San Jose channel. We are a little surprised to find a lone, young gray whale, swimming close to shore. We guess that the whale is one or two years old and 30 feet long - small compared to the adult females we’d seen in Magdalena Bay. This “little” (can 30 feet long really be considered little?) gray whale looks especially small as it swims just below the massive mountains of the Baja peninsula. Along the shore, fishing camps add accents of color to the scene dominated by brown mountains, dark blue water and mottled grey whale.
We spend the afternoon exploring Isla San Francisco. While some people kayak in the horseshoe-shaped bay, others among us take a strenuous hike to the top of a steep ridge, and a few people snorkel as well. Many of us walk behind the beach, across salt flats and to the shore on the island’s other side. There is an especially low tide this afternoon, so we look for creatures among and under the rocks in shallow water. In this intertidal zone we find numerous species of sea stars, brittle stars, sea cucumbers and sea urchins – the echinoderms dominate! We hold them with care and wonder, and then return them to their rocky homes, and their neighbors: colorful worms, slimy sea hares and delicate and beautiful nudibranchs.
While we have been playing, the Sea Lion crew has been busy arranging a delicious barbecue dinner ashore, complete with tiki lights, chairs around a bonfire, and wine and beer. After we eat, we pull our chairs closer to the campfire and listen to naturalists Sue and Adrian tell traditional stories about the origin of night and stars, and an Aztec story about the creation of moon. What campfire is complete without s’mores? The evening ashore lingers with many songs under the stars, and a Zodiac ride back with bioluminescent waves.
