The most difficult task for this entire day was to decide which pictures to put into this Daily Expedition Report from the hundreds taken and how to compact descriptions of all our experiences into the space allotted. The first picture I took was of the fantastic sunrise followed by the sunrise with silhouetted staff members in Zodiacs ready to take us on the early morning Zodiac tour around Isla Ildefonso. Then there were pictures of brown pelicans on nests, many with fuzzy chicks, and the new colony of frigatebirds also with fuzzball chicks and males all puffed up with their amazing inflated red gular pouches. And there were pictures of some very cute little blue-footed booby chicks with parents displaying their dazzling blue footwear. There were wonderful pictures of Sally Lightfoot crabs with their bright red tops and powder blue undersides. Next came some great shots of surfacing fin whales so close to our Zodiacs and our mother ship, National Geographic Sea Bird, that we could easily see the white color of the right lower lip, which clinches identification of these great sea creatures. Still before lunch, there were shots of a school of graceful mobula rays gliding through the crystal clear glassy Gulf waters, smaller versions of the giant manta ray. And just as lunch was about to be announced, a beautiful school of bottlenose dolphins was spotted and we spent time photographing and ooohing and aaahing as they swam on the bow and leapt, to our delight, into the warm Baja air.
After lunch we anchored at a wonderful place along the Baja peninsula called Gull Rock, named for a large rock just offshore that once had a gull on it but that is now covered with brown pelicans. During the afternoon there were naturalist hikes up a hidden and stunningly beautiful arroyo, photo walks, kayaking along the beautiful shoreline, and Zodiac tours. Those that chose the Zodiac tours were back out with marine mammals where we spent over a half-hour traveling along with a school of over 1,000 common dolphins. There were pictures of all these experiences. So, now it has been written in the allotted space, and the photos have been chosen out of the hundreds, and none of the words or pictures will ever come close to creating a true picture of this magical day that we spent here in the Gulf of California. Absolutely stunning!
