Blue whale food has arrived off San Diego too!
How Rob fuels before his lectures….
Many thanks to Rich Crossen for capturing these classic “Rob” moments!
Season 2012 comes to a close
We close our 2012 with very grateful hearts and look forward to sharing Baja California with you in 2013!
We visit these special places and leave a little bit of ourselves there.
This time we are growing into wavy barrel cacti on Isla Santa Catalina!
Tour #5: southern Sea of Cortez
Dear whalewatchers:
After a beautiful sunrise at Isla Cerralvo, we had perfect ocean conditions but very little wildlife action for the morning. However things heated up around lunchtime as we found bottlenose dolphins with a juvenile humpback, several more humpbacks, and even a trio of humpbacks (mother, calf and escort) that allowed us to observe them for more than an hour. The calf surfaced often right next to the boat.
We travelled south to find more whales and also found a large school of smooth-tailed mobula rays that swam right under the surface and also right next to the boat. Every few minutes one would leap out of the water, challenging the photographers. But the water clarity let us follow the entire school for about 30 minutes.
At sunset, two humpbacks joined a single after it breached several times for all to see. We watched a trio into the sunset to end our day.
Tonight we’ll share our last dinner and stories from this fun trip.
Capt Art
Tour # 5: Offshore La Paz area
We have great whalewatching weather today so we are “Searching…”
Tour #5: Isla San Jose, San Francisco and Los Islotes
Dear whalewatchers:
Today was a day full of wildlife activities. We started with a pre-breakfast mangrove skiff ride to see birds such as herons, egrets, osprey, night herons, shorebirds, oystercatchers, and the elusive mangrove warbler! There were many warblers today, maybe because their nesting season is approaching and the males were territorial enough to chase each other around. It was a beautiful morning in a special place on the south end of Isla San Jose.
After breakfast we visited Isla San Francisco and everyone enjoyed this gorgeous beach and cove. Some people hiked up the cliff for a view of the Sea of Cortez and others snorkeled in the rocky cove and over the sandy bottom.
After a bit of travel, we arrived at Los Islotes for another snorkel with the sea lions. We decided to do something different on our last trip of 2012 and have a beach party with Charles’ BBQ and a fantastic sunset from the beach tonght. Oh yeah, there’ll be some margaritas to drink too.
We are looking forward to more whalewatching in the humpback zone tomorrow. Who knows what else we will find!
Capt Art
Tour #5 Isla Catalina
Hello whalewatchers:
Today we went ashore at Isla Santa Catalina. There was a slight breeze so it was cooler today. That resulted in less reptiles with the exception of two rattlelss rattlesnakes. They were in the same area as last trip. As usual, the cactus are tremendous and all the cardons are within days of full bloom.
Part of the group had a snorkel session and a few people went on a Krazy Koastal Kruise with Kapt Kenny to see dolphins and Sally Lightfoot crabs.
We had lunch at anchor and then ventured out to look for whales. It was windy so we worked south with the wind and swell. We saw a large herd of common dolphin and a humpback whale that breached a few times.
Looking forward to tomorrow at Isla San Jose and Isla San Francisco.
Capt Art
p.s. Marin “helping” Chef Charles clean the frosting bowl…
