When card tables seek to fly, that is the mental image you can set in your mind for what we woke to this morning. Mobula rays, hundreds of them, were emerging from the water in spontaneous flight and then belly flopping back into the water. Some added the flair of a flip or two and then joined the others in the unceremonious crash back into the water. Photographically frustrating for sure, but great fun as we never knew where to look next; we followed our ears to the next plop and splash.
We continued to scan the calm waters north of Isla del Carmen and soon found a nice sized pod of common dolphins. The pod had a number of young dolphins and when they rode the bow wave of our ship, others were observed to be carrying hitchhiking remoras. The exuberance of the common dolphins was matched later by the bottlenose dolphins. Altogether we started with a rich morning of marine mammal and flipping fish fun.
Isla Santa Catalina is where we met our first desert flora friends. We wandered the winding arroyo and heard stories of pollination on the wind with jojoba, the genus name Cardiospermum referencing the heart-shaped scar left on the seed after you pluck it from the balloon-shaped pod, and why a plant could possibly be given a common name reference of “caca de perro.” (It’s because of what the seed pods look like, something perhaps, left on a sidewalk.)
The crown jewel of the island, botanically, is the giant barrel cactus. This is a monster of a barrel like nowhere else, with some specimens reaching 12 feet tall. Just as impressive were the cardon cacti. With a massive “elephantine” base and multiple arms, these desert sentinels can reach up to 60 feet tall. We were definitely among giants. The tiny resident that caught our attentions just before we left the beach was the elusive rattle-less rattlesnake. It was spotted by our guest, Lars, and Adrian was able to get a great view of it for some of our guests. At our evening Recap, images were shared so all could see the quiet resident of Isla Santa Catalina.
We’ll continue to write the story of our experiences when we visit the tiny islet of Los Islotes tomorrow; the next chapter to our voyage of adventure and discovery.
