The first word I heard on the bow just at 6:30 sunrise today was “auspicious” and it ended up to be that kind of a day. Auspiciousness began with a sighting of a tropical whale, otherwise known as Bryde’s whale, making its way across our bow as we were heading toward a large school of common dolphins a mile or more off in the direction of the sunrise. Tropical whales are distributed worldwide in the tropics and subtropics, and the population in the Sea of Cortez is probably resident, although we don’t see them all that often. After our encounter with the Bryde’s whale, we continued on with our auspicious morning, and met a very large school of Common dolphins that were changing directions quickly, apparently chasing after breakfast. To our great delight, they would ride the ship’s bow like a surfer on a wave for a short time and then break off to continue their dolphin life. More auspiciousness followed for the rest of our morning spent with California sea lions at the lovely little islands, Los Islotes. We watched the sea lions on a small boat tour, and then most of us got into the water to snorkel with them. Not only were the sea lions amazing to see underwater, but also the abundance of fish and seabirds at the island were impressive and very beautiful.
Auspiciously, we came across another school of dolphins as we headed for our afternoon activities at Bahia Bonanza, on the southeast corner of Isla Espritu Santo. These were bottlenose dolphins that seemed more interested in a siesta than riding the bow wave of our ship, but they did spend a short time cavorting around us. Bahia Bonanza is a beautiful shallow bay with azure water, back dropped by spectacular mountains. We hiked into the desert, kayaked along the shoreline, walked the miles long beach and had a BBQ dinner on the beach with a most spectacular sunset of huge thunder heads and even a bit of lightning close to the west of us. Add a few billion stars and a beach fire, and auspiciousness takes on an entirely new meaning. May our auspicious days be many.
