Our day was filled with color! We left our cozy anchorage at Ensenada Grande in the early morning. Until that time, we were unsure of what direction we would take, but happily the wind had relented enough for us to travel north. We made our way at a comfortable slow pace and reached Isla San Francisco mid-morning.
San Francisco is a tiny island, at just one-and-a-half square miles, but is a boaters’ favorite, since it has a well-protected bay. Despite its size, San Francisco is diverse, since it “borrows” much of its biota from the much larger nearby Isla Jan Jose.
Once ashore, most of us went walking with naturalists. At first glance, the parched aspect of this island seems to offer little. Desert tree species under which one may stand elsewhere are usually no more than knee-high on San Francisco. Yet with a little bit of attention the island reveals its treasures. Scraggily galloping cacti often hide artfully constructed packrat middens. One of these cacti was in fruit, bearing what looked like a spiny scarlet tennis ball. We cut into the fruit to taste its sweet, startlingly colored, seed-packed flesh. Fruit was often on the mamillaria cacti as well. These cacti are diminutive, and so densely covered in gray spines that they were easy to miss among the rocks. But their fruits were a conspicuous vermillion, designed to entice some passing bird to spread its seeds. Weirdest of all were pencil cacti that do a very convincing imitation of a dead twig. Though hard to spot, once our eyes were “tuned” we found several, including one with an outsized red fruit. Much more conspicuous were coyote-melons, vines bedecked with fruits looking like tangerines. Some walkers ascended a minor valley to a ridge that offered fine views of the island on one side, and dramatic cliffs falling to the sea on the other.
We returned to the island after lunch for a relaxed afternoon of exploration. Some crossed the island to rocky flats revealed at low tide. Here, later-day Steinbecks and Rickettses found weird squishy and spiny creatures, a few in brilliant hues. Some people snorkeled while others paddled about in our bright kayaks. At last, some re-climbed the ridge with our photographic team to capture the sky, the waves, and the craggy mountains in sunset’s citrus colors.
