Canal de Ballenas and Isla Rasa
Canal de Ballenas (the Whale’s Channel) is reputedly one of the best places to encounter both toothed and baleen whales in the Gulf of California. It is not for nothing that the area got its name. It is located between the Baja peninsula and the San Lorenzo-Las Animas-Salsipuedes island chain in the midriff area of the gulf.
The entire morning was spent seeking marine mammals. At different times we saw fin whales, common dolphins and sperm whales, as well as many marine birds in a frenzied feeding provoked by the dolphins. Our closest encounter was that of a fin whale surfacing right next to the Sea Voyager (photo). There are no words to describe the excitement on the ship. The whole length of the body was seen as the animal slowly progressed in the water. It was like an eternal moment. Time was frozen and those few seconds felt like an hour.
Later, we walked on Partida Island, nesting site for petrels and fish-eating bats (which were heard from their roosting crevices). We finished the day on Rasa Island, where hundreds of thousands of Hermann’s gulls and elegant and royal terns were nesting. We heard their calls as the very voice of the Sea of Cortes.
Canal de Ballenas (the Whale’s Channel) is reputedly one of the best places to encounter both toothed and baleen whales in the Gulf of California. It is not for nothing that the area got its name. It is located between the Baja peninsula and the San Lorenzo-Las Animas-Salsipuedes island chain in the midriff area of the gulf.
The entire morning was spent seeking marine mammals. At different times we saw fin whales, common dolphins and sperm whales, as well as many marine birds in a frenzied feeding provoked by the dolphins. Our closest encounter was that of a fin whale surfacing right next to the Sea Voyager (photo). There are no words to describe the excitement on the ship. The whole length of the body was seen as the animal slowly progressed in the water. It was like an eternal moment. Time was frozen and those few seconds felt like an hour.
Later, we walked on Partida Island, nesting site for petrels and fish-eating bats (which were heard from their roosting crevices). We finished the day on Rasa Island, where hundreds of thousands of Hermann’s gulls and elegant and royal terns were nesting. We heard their calls as the very voice of the Sea of Cortes.
