Baja Day 6: San Jose Channel & Isla San Jose

This is the events of our fifth full day of the expedition. All photos from this day can be found here. The daily expedition report is also available.

We awoke this morning in the San Jose Channel north of La Paz. The sea was beyond calm; I have been on rougher waters on a farm pond. Very few clouds in the sky.

We spent the morning looking for whales. Didn’t find much more than a spout or two in the distance.

However, we did find a group of dolphins. Several hundred dolphins feeding, whistling, playing and generally swimming around doing dolphin things.

A couple of dolphins jumped out of the water to do a tail stand or, even, a double flip.

There were also a lot of random birds and quite a few sea lions. There was a minor scuffle between a dolphin and a sea lion. Not clear who won, but the sea lion departed rather quickly with a bark of frustration.

While the dolphins were riding the bow wave of the Sea Bird, we could quite distinctly hear their whistles. Funny; as soon as the ship slowed down to drift in the middle of the dolphins, the ones riding the bow wave immediately departed. Seems they like the thrill of bow riding only when we are moving at a decent clip.

In the afternoon, we visited Isla San Jose. We opted to do both sessions of hiking in the afternoon, skipping the kayaking opportunity. While I would have enjoyed Kayaking, burning off some of Roger’s energy by hiking around for a few hours was far more important.

For the first session, we hiked up an arroyo into the hills. There was lots of dessert botanics to be found. The plants are all optimized around having zero water for almost all of the year. The only rainfall comes during hurricane season and that isn’t even a sure thing. When the rains do come, it tends to be tens of inches in a short amount of time.

While hiking up the arroyo, we happened upon a peregrine falcon creating a tremendous racket as it attacked a horned owl. Clearly, there was an issue of territory at hand.

Even though the falcon was considerably smaller than the owl, it was certainly the aggressor in this particular battle. The owl camped in a crevice on a cliff face for a bit before moving on. Of course, once the owl took flight, the falcon was back to harass it. Peregrine falcons are vicious and fearless birds, often attacking humans that happen upon a nest’s location.

We also ran across this gorgeous bit of tree sap that was oozing from a branch. It glowed with such rich amber color in the afternoon sun.

After hiking up the arroyo, Roger and I headed off for a “self guided exploration session” the rest of the afternoon. We explored the various shelves of rock that hung over the ocean. They were loaded with fossils, including thousands of shells and the occasional whale bone.

We also hiked into the hills a bit and ran across many fish bones. Odd. You wouldn’t normally expect to find fish bones several hundred yards from the ocean and up some random hill. But there they were.

After exploring for the afternoon, we headed back to the ship for a bit before returning to the beach for a bonfire and beach side cookout. The staff greeted the zodiacs with trays of ice cold beer or cups of wine.

The cookout was held in a natural ampitheatre. After dinner, William — the resident bat expert — animatedly told a succint version of the Aztec mythos of creation. It covered the creation of all of the heavens and the role that the Aztec leaders (and possibly Mayan) played in said story, as well as the modern events surrounding the various artifacts related to the mythos. The tale was told with an empathy and passion that could only come from one well versed in said history. It has definitely motivated me to learn more of the history of the people of Mexico and Central America.

From there, it was back to the ship. I asked if bioluminescent plankton were common in this area of the world. Apparently, they are. Though, with the new moon it wasn’t possible to look for the glow as we motored back to the Sea Bird. However, the toilet system uses largely unfiltered sea water and, in theory, the toilet should glow if flushed in the dark.

I’ll have to check that out.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 10th, 2006 at 12:42 am and is filed under Life, Nature, Photography, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.