Isla San Esteban & Isla Rasa
Whales for breakfast? Well, actually it was whales before breakfast! The sun had barely peeked over the horizon when our early risers spotted three fin whales slowly cruising off the port bow. These sleek giants can reach 75 feet in length and are such powerful swimmers that early whalers called them “greyhounds of the sea”. As our cetacean friends headed off to feast on plankton we headed for the dining room and a sumptuous breakfast buffet.
Soon we were ashore on Isla San Esteban, home of not one but two large lizards, the pinto chuckwalla and the spiny-tailed iguana. As we hiked up a wide arroyo we spotted several of these intriguing animals shading themselves under elephant trees or hanging out in the branches of cardon cacti. Pinto chuckwallas, which are vegetarians that prefer to dine on cardon cactus flowers, can grow to a length of two feet. When alarmed, they race into crevices and inflate their skin to firmly wedge themselves in the rocks. Spiny-tailed iguanas also enjoy a dinner of cactus flowers but they are considerably more cosmopolitan in their tastes – which can include baby chuckwallas.
Isla San Esteban is also historically important as the former home of an extremely isolated band of Seri Indians. We had a good look at many of the plants that supported these peculiar people, and our landing site afforded us a close-up view of the famous “turtle shell slide”, a steep scree slope above high sea cliffs. According to Seri oral history, the San Esteban men played a lethal game of “chicken” by sliding down this slope in inverted sea turtle shells, vying with each other to be the last man to leap to safety before sailing off the cliffs to their death below. Back on board our ship, a slide talk provided more details about the culture of these people, including their tragic demise in a massacre near the end of the nineteenth century.
From this magical island of giant lizards we headed to the incredible island of birds – Isla Rasa. As we walked up the path to the overlook above the main nesting area we were greeted with the deafening cacaphony of nearly half a million sea birds packed into an area of a mere five acres. Isla Rasa is the site of 95 per cent of the world’s population of nesting Heermans’ Gulls and nearly as high a percentage of Elegant Terns. The island is not only one of natural history wonders of the world, but it is one of the great success stories in conservation. By the 1950s, egg collectors had nearly driven nesting birds from the island, and introduced rats and mice threatened the few that remained. Since the island was protected in 1964 and rodents were eradicated in the 1990s, bird numbers have rebounded dramatically and the island has regained its critical role as a nesting site.
From natural history we shifted gears to kayak trips and Zodiac rides around Isla Rasa, and, for a few hearty souls, a quick dip in the sea off the ship’s fantail. A great dinner, an after-dinner talk by the biologists conducting research on Isla Rasa, and another wonderful day drew to a satisfying close under a star-filled sky.
Whales for breakfast? Well, actually it was whales before breakfast! The sun had barely peeked over the horizon when our early risers spotted three fin whales slowly cruising off the port bow. These sleek giants can reach 75 feet in length and are such powerful swimmers that early whalers called them “greyhounds of the sea”. As our cetacean friends headed off to feast on plankton we headed for the dining room and a sumptuous breakfast buffet.
Soon we were ashore on Isla San Esteban, home of not one but two large lizards, the pinto chuckwalla and the spiny-tailed iguana. As we hiked up a wide arroyo we spotted several of these intriguing animals shading themselves under elephant trees or hanging out in the branches of cardon cacti. Pinto chuckwallas, which are vegetarians that prefer to dine on cardon cactus flowers, can grow to a length of two feet. When alarmed, they race into crevices and inflate their skin to firmly wedge themselves in the rocks. Spiny-tailed iguanas also enjoy a dinner of cactus flowers but they are considerably more cosmopolitan in their tastes – which can include baby chuckwallas.
Isla San Esteban is also historically important as the former home of an extremely isolated band of Seri Indians. We had a good look at many of the plants that supported these peculiar people, and our landing site afforded us a close-up view of the famous “turtle shell slide”, a steep scree slope above high sea cliffs. According to Seri oral history, the San Esteban men played a lethal game of “chicken” by sliding down this slope in inverted sea turtle shells, vying with each other to be the last man to leap to safety before sailing off the cliffs to their death below. Back on board our ship, a slide talk provided more details about the culture of these people, including their tragic demise in a massacre near the end of the nineteenth century.
From this magical island of giant lizards we headed to the incredible island of birds – Isla Rasa. As we walked up the path to the overlook above the main nesting area we were greeted with the deafening cacaphony of nearly half a million sea birds packed into an area of a mere five acres. Isla Rasa is the site of 95 per cent of the world’s population of nesting Heermans’ Gulls and nearly as high a percentage of Elegant Terns. The island is not only one of natural history wonders of the world, but it is one of the great success stories in conservation. By the 1950s, egg collectors had nearly driven nesting birds from the island, and introduced rats and mice threatened the few that remained. Since the island was protected in 1964 and rodents were eradicated in the 1990s, bird numbers have rebounded dramatically and the island has regained its critical role as a nesting site.
From natural history we shifted gears to kayak trips and Zodiac rides around Isla Rasa, and, for a few hearty souls, a quick dip in the sea off the ship’s fantail. A great dinner, an after-dinner talk by the biologists conducting research on Isla Rasa, and another wonderful day drew to a satisfying close under a star-filled sky.
