Isla Espiritu-Santo, Gulf of California
There has been a bit of a blow, straight down the Gulf from the north/northwest, but that’s okay. As we ride the top of the swell, the wind at our backs, it’s smooth up here. First light and the ship is turning, now we feel what it could have been like as we slide into our anchorage at Los Islotes. It is not very good here, too low and the sea lions have been blown out. Further south then, with the sea, lots of protection down there, at the south end of Isla Espiritu-Santo.
We land at a long white beach with a vast, flat plain beginning right over the berm, behind that, a chain of rocky hills, abrupt with a single break. No built-up seas here, just a gentle break across our toes. On shore we are given our guided choices: a long hike, heading for the break in the hills, meandering through the plain; a medium hike in the plain, look for the endemic black jackrabbit; or a short hike looking for ‘dead’ things on the beach. Or you could go off by yourself, as I did, everyone was gone when I finished driving a Zodiac, so I went to the top, to look around.
The soft flats are nice, easy on the feet with lots of low, spongy plants, salty if you bite them. Then, more and more spiny plants as I get closer to the hills, just walk around them, plenty of room. It is rocky here and there are cacti: giant cardons, complicated galloping cacti and many-ribbed organ pipe. There are flowers too: small, blue morning glories; pale lavender hibiscus; and if you are lucky the creamy, stinky passionflower! And there is more than that for me, I grew up in this desert, the Sonoran Desert and with each step I feel younger: I know that plant, I know that smell, I know that color!
Steeper now, I’m on cobble, almost to the top. It’s all volcanics, pyrotechnic debris and the capping layer is very strange, a conglomerate, rounded stones in a dark matrix. It’s maybe ten feet thick, harder than what is beneath and where they meet, erosion and shallow caves, many are jammed-packed with bits of nasty, spiny, dead vegetation, it’s the packrats, gotta love them! They live in there, them and the rattlesnakes, generation after generation, homes thousands of years old. We know it, some of the oldest homes are partly fossilized and have been carbon-14 dated, making a good record of the changing, that long, slow dance between climate and vegetation.
Now I’m at the top, flat with a great view and I’m not alone. I find a companion and we continue the exploration. We go down the other side, climbing down a field of boulders piled who knows how deep, to a lagoon with mangroves, the low tide exposing lots of fiddler-crab holes and here we merge with yet more trekkers and one has a ‘small’ person on his back! Up and over again to the beach with whale and dolphin bones; look at the fused vertebrae on the dolphin, makes them stiff and strong, jump out of the water; land on their head. That’s just this morning, we stayed here after lunch with kayaking and beach combing, I walked again, further and harder, maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime, if nothing else happens first. Right! I don’t think so!
There has been a bit of a blow, straight down the Gulf from the north/northwest, but that’s okay. As we ride the top of the swell, the wind at our backs, it’s smooth up here. First light and the ship is turning, now we feel what it could have been like as we slide into our anchorage at Los Islotes. It is not very good here, too low and the sea lions have been blown out. Further south then, with the sea, lots of protection down there, at the south end of Isla Espiritu-Santo.
We land at a long white beach with a vast, flat plain beginning right over the berm, behind that, a chain of rocky hills, abrupt with a single break. No built-up seas here, just a gentle break across our toes. On shore we are given our guided choices: a long hike, heading for the break in the hills, meandering through the plain; a medium hike in the plain, look for the endemic black jackrabbit; or a short hike looking for ‘dead’ things on the beach. Or you could go off by yourself, as I did, everyone was gone when I finished driving a Zodiac, so I went to the top, to look around.
The soft flats are nice, easy on the feet with lots of low, spongy plants, salty if you bite them. Then, more and more spiny plants as I get closer to the hills, just walk around them, plenty of room. It is rocky here and there are cacti: giant cardons, complicated galloping cacti and many-ribbed organ pipe. There are flowers too: small, blue morning glories; pale lavender hibiscus; and if you are lucky the creamy, stinky passionflower! And there is more than that for me, I grew up in this desert, the Sonoran Desert and with each step I feel younger: I know that plant, I know that smell, I know that color!
Steeper now, I’m on cobble, almost to the top. It’s all volcanics, pyrotechnic debris and the capping layer is very strange, a conglomerate, rounded stones in a dark matrix. It’s maybe ten feet thick, harder than what is beneath and where they meet, erosion and shallow caves, many are jammed-packed with bits of nasty, spiny, dead vegetation, it’s the packrats, gotta love them! They live in there, them and the rattlesnakes, generation after generation, homes thousands of years old. We know it, some of the oldest homes are partly fossilized and have been carbon-14 dated, making a good record of the changing, that long, slow dance between climate and vegetation.
Now I’m at the top, flat with a great view and I’m not alone. I find a companion and we continue the exploration. We go down the other side, climbing down a field of boulders piled who knows how deep, to a lagoon with mangroves, the low tide exposing lots of fiddler-crab holes and here we merge with yet more trekkers and one has a ‘small’ person on his back! Up and over again to the beach with whale and dolphin bones; look at the fused vertebrae on the dolphin, makes them stiff and strong, jump out of the water; land on their head. That’s just this morning, we stayed here after lunch with kayaking and beach combing, I walked again, further and harder, maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime, if nothing else happens first. Right! I don’t think so!
