Isla Angel de la Guarda & Isla Rasa
The mountain ridges of Isla Angel de la Guarda were bathed in early light as we cruised along the island’s eastern shores at dawn. Jumbled layers of colorful volcanic rock painted the jagged ridges. Anchoring off of a remote stretch of beach, we ventured ashore to walk in a broad desert arroyo. The tall cardon cacti were flowering with large white blossoms that had opened during the night to tempt nectar feeding bats that pollinate them. We wandered up a gravel wash stepping around agaves and cholla cactus, smoke trees and the contorted trunks of torote trees. Eventually the broad path narrowed into a canyon winding between steep mountain walls. A peregrine falcon soared overhead, perching like a sentinel on a high peak overlooking the canyon. Many people had the chance to see a rattlesnake that was trying to be reclusive in the company of two-legged humans who rarely venture here. Its scales were of a reddish hue, colored like the canyon walls.
In the afternoon we headed south toward our destination of Isla Rasa. Along the way we encountered another blue whale, the largest species of animal to ever live on the planet. It was making long dive of 10 to 14 minutes each, then rewarding us with multiple surfacings and an occasional mighty fluke in the air before diving back into the depths.
Eventually we neared Isla Rasa, a low, rocky, and rather flat island that appears quite unremarkable from a distance. This small outpost on the sea is the annual nesting grounds for nearly half a million seabirds. On this island, of only 138 acres, 95% of the entire world populations of Heermann’s gulls and elegant terns return every year to mate and rear their chicks. This year, the birds had not yet begun to nest, but thousands had already returned to the waters and shorelines surrounding the island. We boarded our Zodiacs to see them up close from water level. Here at Rasa we also found peregrine falcons, as well as a small colony of sea lions on a nearby offshore rock. As the yellow sun dipped low over the Baja Peninsula, pairs of terns soared overhead, and great flocks of gulls rested on the quiet water. We raised our anchor and slipped away to the south.
The mountain ridges of Isla Angel de la Guarda were bathed in early light as we cruised along the island’s eastern shores at dawn. Jumbled layers of colorful volcanic rock painted the jagged ridges. Anchoring off of a remote stretch of beach, we ventured ashore to walk in a broad desert arroyo. The tall cardon cacti were flowering with large white blossoms that had opened during the night to tempt nectar feeding bats that pollinate them. We wandered up a gravel wash stepping around agaves and cholla cactus, smoke trees and the contorted trunks of torote trees. Eventually the broad path narrowed into a canyon winding between steep mountain walls. A peregrine falcon soared overhead, perching like a sentinel on a high peak overlooking the canyon. Many people had the chance to see a rattlesnake that was trying to be reclusive in the company of two-legged humans who rarely venture here. Its scales were of a reddish hue, colored like the canyon walls.
In the afternoon we headed south toward our destination of Isla Rasa. Along the way we encountered another blue whale, the largest species of animal to ever live on the planet. It was making long dive of 10 to 14 minutes each, then rewarding us with multiple surfacings and an occasional mighty fluke in the air before diving back into the depths.
Eventually we neared Isla Rasa, a low, rocky, and rather flat island that appears quite unremarkable from a distance. This small outpost on the sea is the annual nesting grounds for nearly half a million seabirds. On this island, of only 138 acres, 95% of the entire world populations of Heermann’s gulls and elegant terns return every year to mate and rear their chicks. This year, the birds had not yet begun to nest, but thousands had already returned to the waters and shorelines surrounding the island. We boarded our Zodiacs to see them up close from water level. Here at Rasa we also found peregrine falcons, as well as a small colony of sea lions on a nearby offshore rock. As the yellow sun dipped low over the Baja Peninsula, pairs of terns soared overhead, and great flocks of gulls rested on the quiet water. We raised our anchor and slipped away to the south.
