Magdalena Bay
A clutch of Zodiacs chugs into the 7:00 a.m. mist, each with hardy seafarers looking for gray whales. During the next hour and a half, whale apparitions rise in the light fog, dark islands glimpsed then gone. Whale sighs and spouts evaporate into the silent morning, and it seems as if whales are pieces of land broken off, and land a whalish mound. For the second round of tours at 8:30 a.m., the day has adjusted itself, and whales are more distinct, if perhaps less mythic. And yet, two Zodiacs are surrounded by grays –a magical moment for all – and, as we pull away from Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos, nearly a dozen more are seen from the deck.
The Gulf of California has changed dramatically since Steinbeck and Ricketts visited in 1940, as National Geographic’s Professor William Gilly outlines in his 11:00 a.m. talk, but the years have not lessened the magic. Billfish, sharks and tuna may have decreased in number, but squid and sperm whale populations have increased, creating new opportunities for fishermen, scientists, and wildlife watchers.
After lunch, bottlenose dolphins “bow ride,” seeming to lead the National Geographic Sea Bird through the channel known as Hull Canal. “Animals have fun,” Lee observes, watching young Luka peer off the bow at the dolphins turning on their sides then arching in the bow wave. “Why do they have holes in their heads when they don’t blow?”—as do gray whales, Luka was surely thinking. Lee gently gave him a bit of dolphin physiology, instructing Luka, like all of us, without seeming to. “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children,” Rachel Carson writes, “I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life…”
A Lindblad voyage, part wonder, part lore, part using “eyes, ears, nostrils and finger tips,” as Carson suggests, goes a long way toward fulfilling her wishes for voyagers of all ages. We ended our day in the mangroves near San Carlos, dreamy and resigned kayakers and boaters. Tomorrow morning the journey ends. Like Steinbeck and Ricketts, “We had all felt the pattern of the Gulf…”
