San Marcos Island and Santa Rosalia
Today we woke up earlier than usual in order to get a chance to watch the sunrise from the shore of San Marcos Island. We early raisers admired many old man cacti, ospreys, mesquites and jackrabbits before returning to the Sea Voyager. After a well-deserved breakfast, we headed toward the deep waters between San Marcos and Tortuga islands in search of sperm whales. Soon we found many of those largest of the toothed cetaceans, and the National Geographic Society’s crew onboard attempted to deploy a “critter-cam” on a whale. After watching those magnificent creatures for a while, our dive master Vicky Showler and I went into the water in order to get some underwater video of the whales; we undersea specialists can’t resist that kind of temptation for long, you know? The hours that followed were really special and we won’t ever forget the encounters that we had, like that of the baby sperm whale who repeatedly circled around us as if inspecting a new toy, while his mom calmly watched a few feet away; the big bull, his face all covered by scars, who slowly swam by like an old warrior; or the whole group that engulfed us while inspecting the clumsy terrestrial creatures with their sonar, including the big male, the female and its tiny baby of the family portrait on the photo above. The day was still young and many exciting things were waiting for us, but for Vicky and me, the day was already over!
Today we woke up earlier than usual in order to get a chance to watch the sunrise from the shore of San Marcos Island. We early raisers admired many old man cacti, ospreys, mesquites and jackrabbits before returning to the Sea Voyager. After a well-deserved breakfast, we headed toward the deep waters between San Marcos and Tortuga islands in search of sperm whales. Soon we found many of those largest of the toothed cetaceans, and the National Geographic Society’s crew onboard attempted to deploy a “critter-cam” on a whale. After watching those magnificent creatures for a while, our dive master Vicky Showler and I went into the water in order to get some underwater video of the whales; we undersea specialists can’t resist that kind of temptation for long, you know? The hours that followed were really special and we won’t ever forget the encounters that we had, like that of the baby sperm whale who repeatedly circled around us as if inspecting a new toy, while his mom calmly watched a few feet away; the big bull, his face all covered by scars, who slowly swam by like an old warrior; or the whole group that engulfed us while inspecting the clumsy terrestrial creatures with their sonar, including the big male, the female and its tiny baby of the family portrait on the photo above. The day was still young and many exciting things were waiting for us, but for Vicky and me, the day was already over!
