Isla San Jose & Isla San Francisco, Baja California
The winds pivoted around Polaris today. Early morning, before a green flash undulated through the orb of the rising sun, Polaris was bright in the northern sky and the winds were blowing from the north and east. By mid-morning, north was still north (even though we had no stellar sign to help us navigate) and the wind had slipped over to the north and west. It whipped the channel’s surface into meringue-like peaks. But it didn’t matter! The Gulf of California embraces a plethora of protected coves, portals to the islands and hidden habitats.
They say birds of a feather flock together and that they seemed to do. Flocks of white ibis with rosy down-curved beaks rose above the verdant green of a mangrove lagoon. Snowy egrets perched en mass, their golden slippers clasping leafless twigs. Lesser scaup huddled where the bay broadened out and tiny eared grebes dove beneath the waves. Like people some avian creatures seemed to like a bit of solitude. With a twinkle in its eye a whimbrel stole a moment on its own until we crept near to take its photograph.
Plants too collect in like communities but the decision is not made by concious choice as in the animal world. Water, elevation and soil all play a major role in determining where they grow. At the southern end of Isla San Jose a cardonal (a forest of giant cardon cacti) marches up to the base of a mountainous ridge. Contently growing side by side wild plum, elephant trees and palo adan share the sandy soil. Snuggled within their branches the twig-like rare Wilcoxia cacti hide. As the land slopes gradually toward the sea and salt creeps into the soil the forest gives way to flats of shrubby iodine bush and halophytic grasses. Not two steps away the sea floods in and it was here that the mangrove trees took hold, the species stratified like rings around a bathtub in need of a good scrub.
Isla San Francisco, tiny though it was, taught a similar lesson. From gravelly beach berm to bonsai-like desert scrub we saw that plants like to hang out with their own. We found too that there are places where conditions are so harsh that all plant life rejects the invitation to establish there. But here in the open playa flat humans have discovered a treasure of sorts. Rectangular evaporation ponds scraped in the soil soon are rimmed with cubic crystals of pure sea salt. Some of us carried a sprinkle back to the shore to season our barbecue which we ate where the turquoise sea was quiet within the embrace of Half Moon Bay. As the sun dipped behind the layered face of the Sierra de la Giganta and Polaris once more came into view, the north wind continued to blow.
The winds pivoted around Polaris today. Early morning, before a green flash undulated through the orb of the rising sun, Polaris was bright in the northern sky and the winds were blowing from the north and east. By mid-morning, north was still north (even though we had no stellar sign to help us navigate) and the wind had slipped over to the north and west. It whipped the channel’s surface into meringue-like peaks. But it didn’t matter! The Gulf of California embraces a plethora of protected coves, portals to the islands and hidden habitats.
They say birds of a feather flock together and that they seemed to do. Flocks of white ibis with rosy down-curved beaks rose above the verdant green of a mangrove lagoon. Snowy egrets perched en mass, their golden slippers clasping leafless twigs. Lesser scaup huddled where the bay broadened out and tiny eared grebes dove beneath the waves. Like people some avian creatures seemed to like a bit of solitude. With a twinkle in its eye a whimbrel stole a moment on its own until we crept near to take its photograph.
Plants too collect in like communities but the decision is not made by concious choice as in the animal world. Water, elevation and soil all play a major role in determining where they grow. At the southern end of Isla San Jose a cardonal (a forest of giant cardon cacti) marches up to the base of a mountainous ridge. Contently growing side by side wild plum, elephant trees and palo adan share the sandy soil. Snuggled within their branches the twig-like rare Wilcoxia cacti hide. As the land slopes gradually toward the sea and salt creeps into the soil the forest gives way to flats of shrubby iodine bush and halophytic grasses. Not two steps away the sea floods in and it was here that the mangrove trees took hold, the species stratified like rings around a bathtub in need of a good scrub.
Isla San Francisco, tiny though it was, taught a similar lesson. From gravelly beach berm to bonsai-like desert scrub we saw that plants like to hang out with their own. We found too that there are places where conditions are so harsh that all plant life rejects the invitation to establish there. But here in the open playa flat humans have discovered a treasure of sorts. Rectangular evaporation ponds scraped in the soil soon are rimmed with cubic crystals of pure sea salt. Some of us carried a sprinkle back to the shore to season our barbecue which we ate where the turquoise sea was quiet within the embrace of Half Moon Bay. As the sun dipped behind the layered face of the Sierra de la Giganta and Polaris once more came into view, the north wind continued to blow.
