This morning, we awoke to a beautiful sunrise over the sand dunes south of Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos. After breakfast, we loaded into our local pangas for the first time to go out whale watching. We saw a couple of whales, a large group of bottlenose dolphins, and many different types of birds.
Both before and after lunch we were able to spend some time on the bow as we navigated the narrow passages of Canal de Soledad. After dropping off our local pilot, Sergio Camacho, who helped us through these shallow waters, we lowered our Zodiacs and kayaks to spend the afternoon exploring the mangroves of El Barril on Isla Magdalena. It was very low tide, so we got a good look into the intricate root systems of this hugely important ecosystem, and we watched feeding shorebirds on the exposed mudflats.
Back on board National Geographic Sea Bird, we had a fascinating presentation by our Stanford guest speaker about the history of cartography of the Baja California Peninsula. It was another wonderful day!
