After having sailed north all night long, the new day found us in the Sea of Cortez’s midriff region; known for its extreme tidal currents that stirs the seafloor and create upwellings, the whole area felt colder than the waters we experienced during the previous days. The overcast skies and strong winds contributed too to the gloomy feeling of the morning as we headed towards the small Rasa Island. We circled the island in search of groups of elegant terns and Heermann’s gulls and eventually dropped the anchor off the southern lee of the island to enjoy breakfast. Rasa Island is well known as the nesting site of about 95% of the world’s population of both bird species, although the scarcity of food—mainly small pelagic fish like sardines and anchovies—this year due to the warmer waters caused by El Niño stopped them from attempting to nest. So we headed north again towards the larger Angel de la Guarda Island, which is Mexico’s longest island at around 100 kilometers in length.
Along the way, we got the chance to witness a very impressive “bochinche,” as the locals call those feeding frenzies where marine mammals, fish, and seabirds congregate at the surface to feed on small pelagic fish or crustaceans. In this case, a large group of long-beaked common dolphins and numerous species of seabirds, including Heermann’s and yellow-footed gulls, brown and blue-footed boobies, shearwaters and elegant terns, chased the small fish. With dolphins swimming and jumping, birds flying all around and cameras clicking like crazy, it was a very exciting moment.
We eventually made it to Angel de la Guarda, which is an extremely arid island but a beautiful example of a colorful geological palette, with almost every mountain or sea cliff showing a mosaic of reddish, yellowish, and brownish patches. It is also the eastern boundary of a deep water channel of more than 3,000 feet of depth than runs between the island and the peninsula of Baja California, known as the Ballenas Channel. We went ashore and enjoyed a relaxing evening hiking and photographing until it was time to return to our floating home to put an end to another day in the beautiful Sea of Cortez.
