Espiritu Santo Island Complex, Baja California Sur
The sky runs from horizon to horizon, an endless dome arching over our heads. A mountain range or an island might be sitting on the edge of the sea but life on board a ship is synonymous with open spaces and solitude. We feel small and drink in the vastness, treasuring it, stashing it away for a future time when the bustle of a city might seem to overwhelm. But along with the enormity of all that surrounds us we discover tiny windows isolating details and imprinting snapshots of the day within our memories.
Rising early, the sky is still dark. Overhead Ursa Major, the big dipper, is poised to pour a cascade of other stars over the lip that conveniently points to Polaris. The lights in the bow of the ship are switched on and encompassed within the illuminating embrace a dance of life captivates our attention. Adult brown pelicans gather, their snow white necks glowing. They fly low, then rapidly plunge into a ball of small schooling fish. Over and over the action is repeated. We are aware of nothing else, simply the interrelationship of predator and prey.
In time the horizon brightens. Clouds radiate from where the sun promises to return to our world, pulsating from pink to mauve and back again. Entrapped in an opening in the clouds two planets twinkle in close association. Framed in our binoculars the coming of the light appears as a fiery furnace blasting red and golden flames. They cast their warmth across the rocks on land which beam back with flushed, carmen colored faces.
Water has eroded grooves within these rocks, a series of steep v-shaped valleys that spill out into quiet turquoise bays that indent the east side of Isla Partida. Each canyon is a gap in an arid land, a sheltered place where shadows hide the moisture from the sun and tiny pools invite both mammals and insects to partake of a fleeting resource waiting there. Plants grow taller and vines are greener and more entwining here. Huge boulders fragment Ensenada Grande into compartments where we must stop and rest, searching the edges of each for a tiny purple flower or maybe a blue vine or a yellow shrub. We climb through the windows from one room to the next. Each is different. With each stop the music changes too. The trill of a canyon wren repeats and mixes with the bell-like song of black-throated sparrows or the high and thready dee-dee of a diminutive verdin. Out in the bay, kayaks are communities of two, each pair exploring in isolation.
At Los Islotes the porthole that opens is into the underwater world. There life seems to live under a greenish sun. Drifting along upon the surface, snorkel masks in place, our field of view is narrowed. A colorful school of fish might go flashing by but more exciting yet are the fast and graceful streamlined forms of California sea lions that dash from one person’s casement to another’s. Camera shutters click. Snap. An image is collected. Back home these snapshots will be our portal back to the experiences of the day.
The sky runs from horizon to horizon, an endless dome arching over our heads. A mountain range or an island might be sitting on the edge of the sea but life on board a ship is synonymous with open spaces and solitude. We feel small and drink in the vastness, treasuring it, stashing it away for a future time when the bustle of a city might seem to overwhelm. But along with the enormity of all that surrounds us we discover tiny windows isolating details and imprinting snapshots of the day within our memories.
Rising early, the sky is still dark. Overhead Ursa Major, the big dipper, is poised to pour a cascade of other stars over the lip that conveniently points to Polaris. The lights in the bow of the ship are switched on and encompassed within the illuminating embrace a dance of life captivates our attention. Adult brown pelicans gather, their snow white necks glowing. They fly low, then rapidly plunge into a ball of small schooling fish. Over and over the action is repeated. We are aware of nothing else, simply the interrelationship of predator and prey.
In time the horizon brightens. Clouds radiate from where the sun promises to return to our world, pulsating from pink to mauve and back again. Entrapped in an opening in the clouds two planets twinkle in close association. Framed in our binoculars the coming of the light appears as a fiery furnace blasting red and golden flames. They cast their warmth across the rocks on land which beam back with flushed, carmen colored faces.
Water has eroded grooves within these rocks, a series of steep v-shaped valleys that spill out into quiet turquoise bays that indent the east side of Isla Partida. Each canyon is a gap in an arid land, a sheltered place where shadows hide the moisture from the sun and tiny pools invite both mammals and insects to partake of a fleeting resource waiting there. Plants grow taller and vines are greener and more entwining here. Huge boulders fragment Ensenada Grande into compartments where we must stop and rest, searching the edges of each for a tiny purple flower or maybe a blue vine or a yellow shrub. We climb through the windows from one room to the next. Each is different. With each stop the music changes too. The trill of a canyon wren repeats and mixes with the bell-like song of black-throated sparrows or the high and thready dee-dee of a diminutive verdin. Out in the bay, kayaks are communities of two, each pair exploring in isolation.
At Los Islotes the porthole that opens is into the underwater world. There life seems to live under a greenish sun. Drifting along upon the surface, snorkel masks in place, our field of view is narrowed. A colorful school of fish might go flashing by but more exciting yet are the fast and graceful streamlined forms of California sea lions that dash from one person’s casement to another’s. Camera shutters click. Snap. An image is collected. Back home these snapshots will be our portal back to the experiences of the day.
