After having sailed north all night long, we saw the light of a new day between the southern end of Espiritu Santo Island and the Peninsula of Baja California; Espiritu Santo is the second southernmost island in the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez, just after Cerralvo Island just a few miles away. It is also the main one of a small group of islands and islets that forms the Espiritu Santo Island Complex Biosphere, a Mexican federal protected area. We dedicated the whole day to exploring it and started by going ashore at Punta Dispensa for some hiking and early morning photography of the beach and desert environment. At the same time, other guests chose to go by expedition landing craft a short distance north to San Gabriel Bay, which is the neighboring bay. There we visited a very active roosting and nesting colony of magnificent frigatebirds on the mangroves at the end of the bay; many individuals of both sexes and all ages were either perched on the trees or flying around, including several young chicks still wearing their snow-white coats of down. Many of their sub-adult relatives, sporting a white head and chest were sitting all over the place and even a few all-black adult males displayed their big red gular pouches trying to attract some of the ladies flying above them. All this activity happening at the very same place where the remnants of a former pearl-bearing oyster farm can still be seen. Starting at the beginnings of the 1900s, the former city major of La Paz, Don Gastón Vivés, built a series of channels and ponds taking advantage of the tides to flood them in and out to raise the oysters. His design and techniques proved to be very effective and soon the new enterprise was producing high numbers of mother-of-pearl to export to Europe and Mexico City to make buttons and ornaments. As a by-product the farm also got a lot of natural pearls in the process and became the very first aquaculture project in the Americas! Unfortunately, one of the owner’s enemies who gained a lot of power during the Mexican Revolution that started in 1910 destroyed the farm as revenge and Don Gastón was never able to reopen it again.
Around midday we relocated to the northern part of Partida Sur Island and dropped anchor at Ensenada Grande, where we spent the whole afternoon. We had our first opportunity to go snorkeling and also did some more hiking and cruising in expedition landing craft to photograph the impressive rock formations around the bay. We ended the day with a delicious BBQ dinner ashore under the stars, complete with s’mores. What a great way to enjoy our first full day in the beautiful Sea of Cortez!
