San Jose Channel and Isla San Francisco, Baja California Sur, México
Where can you watch hundreds of dolphins swim in a frontal assault on a fish school and the most marvelous sunrise ever? In Baja California, of course! This morning we had this adventure in the San Jose Channel, between the Baja California peninsula and the island of San Jose. And in the middle of breakfast, a whale! A humpback whale doing a series of waterous antics for us. It was first seen breaching, then it continued to breach even higher, and later regaled us with a series of pec-slaps or slapping the water with its huge 15-foot pectoral fin, back and forth. These whales are balleen whales, with a size of up to 45 feet. Their weight can reach 45 tons, and they feed off small fish and krill. But it is not clear what they do here in the Gulf of California. Typically these animals come down to this part of Mexico to mate and to calve, and do their serious feeding off the fish-rich waters of the northern latitudes, off the coast of north-western Canada. But the Gulf of California is a very rich body of water, and where we saw this whale swimming, we concurrently saw the huge dolphin pod swimming back and forth, changing direction at all times, presumably feeding. Can these big whales be here also for a big, healthy snack?
Later we sailed further south, to Isla San Francisco, where we had lunch at anchor, and then had a good time snorkeling and kayaking in Halfmoon Bay and making a series of hikes on this small island. Here we saw many different cacti, and among them the rare pencil cactus, endemic to Baja California, as well as many other flowering plants, and even a chuckwalla, a big, fat, sassy iguana that feeds principally on cacti and other plants.
Where can you watch hundreds of dolphins swim in a frontal assault on a fish school and the most marvelous sunrise ever? In Baja California, of course! This morning we had this adventure in the San Jose Channel, between the Baja California peninsula and the island of San Jose. And in the middle of breakfast, a whale! A humpback whale doing a series of waterous antics for us. It was first seen breaching, then it continued to breach even higher, and later regaled us with a series of pec-slaps or slapping the water with its huge 15-foot pectoral fin, back and forth. These whales are balleen whales, with a size of up to 45 feet. Their weight can reach 45 tons, and they feed off small fish and krill. But it is not clear what they do here in the Gulf of California. Typically these animals come down to this part of Mexico to mate and to calve, and do their serious feeding off the fish-rich waters of the northern latitudes, off the coast of north-western Canada. But the Gulf of California is a very rich body of water, and where we saw this whale swimming, we concurrently saw the huge dolphin pod swimming back and forth, changing direction at all times, presumably feeding. Can these big whales be here also for a big, healthy snack?
Later we sailed further south, to Isla San Francisco, where we had lunch at anchor, and then had a good time snorkeling and kayaking in Halfmoon Bay and making a series of hikes on this small island. Here we saw many different cacti, and among them the rare pencil cactus, endemic to Baja California, as well as many other flowering plants, and even a chuckwalla, a big, fat, sassy iguana that feeds principally on cacti and other plants.
