Isla San Pedro Martir & Exploring
It would be idyllic to always have calm flat seas for all our trips, but that’s not the way it works; we have to have a little good with the bad otherwise, it wouldn’t be interesting. And interesting is just what you could call our day.
We must have made King Neptune angry because of the rough seas during the night caused the Sea Voyager to heave and pitch in a most uncomfortable manner as we made our way south. We sought refuge in the protected waters of Isla San Pedro Martir, our destination, and launched our Zodiacs for an awesome cruise with our expedition staff. It is the most isolated island in the gulf and sits roughly in the middle between Sonora and the Baja peninsula. Here we found what could possibly be the largest nesting colony of blue-footed booby birds in the world. This remarkable island is Mexico’s largest nesting colony of the brown-bobby bird and third largest sea lion rookery of the gulf islands.
Back on the ship, we traveled south in our search for whales. Even though it was still quite rough, many of our brave guests came out and attempted to look. It wasn’t long before a spout broke through the waves to be followed by the back of our first baleen whale, the finback. Even though we lost sight of it, we didn’t mind because another crooked spout indicated that we had found the largest of the toothed whales, the sperm whale. It was difficult to get too close to them because of the rough sea conditions and soon they parted our company with a display of upright tail or fluke shots which indicated a deep dive.
We broke away for some sustenance in the form of a mouth-watering pozole, a typical Mexican soup made with beef broth, corn and vegetables. We were soon called out by our expedition leader announcing that the sperm whales were back. We stayed a little while longer with our whales and then turned back to our original heading to Isla del Carmen.
By mid-afternoon we joined our guest lecturer from Caltech, Professor Joann Stock, as she talked about remote sensing and her undergraduate student, Sonia Tikoo shared her presentation about her undergraduate research with us. Once again, we were visited by the largest carnivore on earth. The sperm whales seemed to be keeping company with a large school of bottlenose dolphins, and seemed as excited as we as they leapt from the water time after time in a aerial display of enthusiasm.
By late afternoon, we gathered on the sun deck and shared our stories of the day while we enjoyed a delicious fish ceviche from the galley and cocktails from our bartender, Jorge.
It would be idyllic to always have calm flat seas for all our trips, but that’s not the way it works; we have to have a little good with the bad otherwise, it wouldn’t be interesting. And interesting is just what you could call our day.
We must have made King Neptune angry because of the rough seas during the night caused the Sea Voyager to heave and pitch in a most uncomfortable manner as we made our way south. We sought refuge in the protected waters of Isla San Pedro Martir, our destination, and launched our Zodiacs for an awesome cruise with our expedition staff. It is the most isolated island in the gulf and sits roughly in the middle between Sonora and the Baja peninsula. Here we found what could possibly be the largest nesting colony of blue-footed booby birds in the world. This remarkable island is Mexico’s largest nesting colony of the brown-bobby bird and third largest sea lion rookery of the gulf islands.
Back on the ship, we traveled south in our search for whales. Even though it was still quite rough, many of our brave guests came out and attempted to look. It wasn’t long before a spout broke through the waves to be followed by the back of our first baleen whale, the finback. Even though we lost sight of it, we didn’t mind because another crooked spout indicated that we had found the largest of the toothed whales, the sperm whale. It was difficult to get too close to them because of the rough sea conditions and soon they parted our company with a display of upright tail or fluke shots which indicated a deep dive.
We broke away for some sustenance in the form of a mouth-watering pozole, a typical Mexican soup made with beef broth, corn and vegetables. We were soon called out by our expedition leader announcing that the sperm whales were back. We stayed a little while longer with our whales and then turned back to our original heading to Isla del Carmen.
By mid-afternoon we joined our guest lecturer from Caltech, Professor Joann Stock, as she talked about remote sensing and her undergraduate student, Sonia Tikoo shared her presentation about her undergraduate research with us. Once again, we were visited by the largest carnivore on earth. The sperm whales seemed to be keeping company with a large school of bottlenose dolphins, and seemed as excited as we as they leapt from the water time after time in a aerial display of enthusiasm.
By late afternoon, we gathered on the sun deck and shared our stories of the day while we enjoyed a delicious fish ceviche from the galley and cocktails from our bartender, Jorge.
