San Jose Channel, Baja California, Mexico
As soon as the sun was up making the world around us pink, we were assiduously searching the waters between the mainland of the Peninsula of Baja California and Isla San Jose for behemoths moving in that liquid. At first it was a small group of bottlenose dolphins that we encountered (who simply ignored us), then a huge group of hundreds of common dolphins, swimming fast and sometimes jumping partially or totally out of the water. Always entertaining us, they bow rode for a while. But they were quickly forgotten when we saw the blow we had been looking for. After waiting 46 minutes: a sperm whale seen previously by only a few, reappeared. The largest of the toothed whales, it is a distant cousin to Moby Dick. At first it was some hundreds of feet away, but it slowly approached. We were able to see the complete dorsal part of the body, the huge head with an enormous bump on the forehead and its blowhole, offset to the left. It logged or rested at the surface for a long time, reoxygenating its blood and the myoglobin in its muscles in preparation for its next dive. This species feeds on deep dwelling squid, and this is the place to find them. All of us had the opportunity of photographing this animal to our heart’s content, using up roll after roll of film and digital card after digital card of memory. It is not every day that you get an opportunity like this! Then it started to arch its back and our breaths were caught in our throats as the animal commenced to dive! The fluke of the animal was exposed in the air for a moment before it disappeared under the waters of the Gulf of California. It was then that we decided to move to our next destination of the day.
During the afternoon we hiked at Punta Colorada on the same island, where we enjoyed the geologically interesting arroyo, consisting of quite eroded orange sandstone, with a white phosphate layer above it. Here a good number of desert plants were seen in bloom, as it has been raining on and off lately. At the same time, some of us snorkeled near our landing site. A good number of fish were seen, as well as a few urchins and other marine invertebrates.
As soon as the sun was up making the world around us pink, we were assiduously searching the waters between the mainland of the Peninsula of Baja California and Isla San Jose for behemoths moving in that liquid. At first it was a small group of bottlenose dolphins that we encountered (who simply ignored us), then a huge group of hundreds of common dolphins, swimming fast and sometimes jumping partially or totally out of the water. Always entertaining us, they bow rode for a while. But they were quickly forgotten when we saw the blow we had been looking for. After waiting 46 minutes: a sperm whale seen previously by only a few, reappeared. The largest of the toothed whales, it is a distant cousin to Moby Dick. At first it was some hundreds of feet away, but it slowly approached. We were able to see the complete dorsal part of the body, the huge head with an enormous bump on the forehead and its blowhole, offset to the left. It logged or rested at the surface for a long time, reoxygenating its blood and the myoglobin in its muscles in preparation for its next dive. This species feeds on deep dwelling squid, and this is the place to find them. All of us had the opportunity of photographing this animal to our heart’s content, using up roll after roll of film and digital card after digital card of memory. It is not every day that you get an opportunity like this! Then it started to arch its back and our breaths were caught in our throats as the animal commenced to dive! The fluke of the animal was exposed in the air for a moment before it disappeared under the waters of the Gulf of California. It was then that we decided to move to our next destination of the day.
During the afternoon we hiked at Punta Colorada on the same island, where we enjoyed the geologically interesting arroyo, consisting of quite eroded orange sandstone, with a white phosphate layer above it. Here a good number of desert plants were seen in bloom, as it has been raining on and off lately. At the same time, some of us snorkeled near our landing site. A good number of fish were seen, as well as a few urchins and other marine invertebrates.
