Category Archives: Wildlife

Entourage

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“Whoa! Look behind you!”, I yelled at Mike, who was at the helm of our little Portland Pudgy dinghy. “We’ve got company and they’re here to party!”

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbXJldeaDfY[/embedyt]

Snugly anchored at the base of the big cliffs of Isla San Pedro Martir, smack in the middle of the Sea of Cortez, we finally feel like Crusing Season 2020 has begun. It seems like it took forever to reach escape velocity from San Carlos.  Sure, we were having grand fun with friends who currently live there. We will miss our friends. But, I mean, we are here to cruise by boat. We had to go. The weather offered us just enough time to thread the needle between north wind blows and we chose to take the opportunity. Destination: this wild island of birds and sea lions in the middle of nowhere, close to nothing. Just the way we like it.

Isla San Pedro Martir, wind and seas

We took a chance coming to visit this island this time of year. Being this far from anywhere between predicted north wind blows is always risky. You have to be prepared to take weather that is worse than predicted. And to be clear, had the blows been predicted to be much higher, we would not have come. We had a ‘plan B’ if we had to bail if the weather reports didn’t hold up and our next destination, Santa Rosalia, is downwind from here. If conditions at this island were untenable or completely unsafe, we’d just have a really fast downwind sail.

Weather patterns during the winter here are, in a word, dynamic. They change rapidly and predictions more than a day in advance may not hold true. That happens on the regular in the winter in the Sea of Cortez and it’s almost a certainty that winds that develop will be higher than predicted, with the accompanying higher-than-predicted seas. That’s happened so often that we just count on it now and if it doesn’t come to pass, well good then. Two years ago you couldn’t have paid me to take this chance. I would have felt like it was too risky; the potential pay off not worth what I was sure was going to be hours of “I hate this why am I here what is wrong with me that I would agree to this?”. Two and a half years into this cruising thing and my tolerance for discomfort has gone way up. It was a no brainer this year. Yeah, the last two hours were not that much fun, but it was a small price to pay.  So here we are.

I’ve never seen a rock full of sea mammals that didn’t make me grin. Those faces!

Dinghy splashed and engined-up, we set out to explore the shoreline in the lee of the island. You are not allowed to go ashore on this protected island, but no one says you cannot explore by dinghy. The winds were building as expected, but we had enough protection on this southeast side to get off the boat and have a visit up close and personal with the local wildlife. Honestly, for us, it doesn’t get much better than this. And in this place, the residents are as curious about us as we were about them. As soon as we dropped anchor a curious little sea lion came over to say howdy.

Soon we had a following as we motored around. First a few sea lions came along side, spy hopping and splashing as they checked us out. Then more and more joined the party until we had an entire congregation jumping and diving, showing off their watery skills as they raced the dinghy from one area to the next. Honestly, I think they were just playing with us. When Mike turned the engine off, they completely lost interest. But once we started moving again, there they were torpedoing through the clear water, splashing us with their leaps, eyeballing us with those big, watery eyes. The last time we had been surrounded by playful sea lions was at San Miguel Island in California, still a highlight of this trip.

We got so many underwater shots of the sea lions that it almost made up for the fact that the water was 59F and there was no way we were getting in!

We got two days of soul filling sea lions, Blue Footed and Brown Boobies, Tropic Birds, thousands of little Grebes and stunning scenery.  Now we are primed and ready for more.

Here are more photos. Honestly, we have so many it’s hard to choose which ones to post. Be sure to scroll to the end for a special treat.

Just showing off.

Don’t make me get off this rock and defend my women!

The supper club. These guys and their loud voices!

Who’s pretty?

All the pelicans are dressed up in their party clothes right now.

And now, for your edification, the soothing renditions of a pre-dawn Sea Lions and assorted birds meditation.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ8R6ARqABI[/embedyt]

And here’s one that shows the anchorage and why their voices are so very loud! [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVdgjPFLDtY[/embedyt]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Westward, Ho!

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We are back in cruising mode and if you believe in signs and portents,  this season is headed in the right direction. We are already firmly in fun mode. After our month hunkered down against the heat and humidity in San Carlos, our Wanderblobs finally arrived in Phoenix and we traveled across the border to grab them from the airport and spend a day shopping for supplies. That trip went off without any hitches! Their plane landed on time, our Air Bnb finds were great, and our new mainsail from Zoom Sails and Tides Marine Strong Track were waiting patiently for us at the Fed Ex pick up location. Car fully loaded with loved ones and supplies, we breezed over the border and hightailed it back to San Carlos. Two days later we were off the dock for the first time since June. Even Hurricane Lorena couldn’t harsh our buzz. She died off and passed over us with barely a whimper.

After two brief stops to allow Jill time to get her sea legs, we are sitting here in beautiful Bahía de los Perros on the south end of Isla Tiberon with our first full day of swimming and exploring under out belts. Tomorrow we will move on to the smaller islands. The weather has been fantastic ever since we left the mainland. We have humidity of only 58%, and air temperatures in the mid 80’s during the day. We even get a cool breeze at night so sleeping conditions are downright pleasant. We didn’t expect this level of luxury, especially with sea temps still in the high 80’s, and maybe it won’t last. But we’ll take it.

Here are a few photos from our last few days. (Bug photo alert!)

Mike in his happy place.

First fish of the season. A delicious Dorado!

This happy grasshopper.

Gorgeous Isla Tiberón.

Pacific Sierra, enroute to Isla Tiberon

The view from the cockpit this morning. We came in after sundown, so we couldn’t tell how beautiful it was.

A rock window at Bahía de los Perros.

Jill discovers one of the many piles of Murex shells that seem to be common in the Sea of Cortez.

 

 

The Sweet Spot

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Back in the Sea of Cortez, we are finally finding our groove. Yeah, it’s been awhile since we felt this way. We are in a nice routine of relaxing over breakfast in the morning, then getting our snorkeling gear on and spending a few hours exploring reefs. Hot afternoons are spent below in the relative cool of the cabin, eating late lunch and examining the photos we took that day. We play our version of Exotic Fish Bingo. I just love sitting down with our field guides and a batch of photos fresh from the camera! We are such nerds. I always feel a little light headed and giddy when I discover I’ve seen a new fish.

“Look, Honey! I think this is a Glossy Blenny! I’m calling it! I’m marking it down!”.

“Oh yeah? Well I’ll see your Glossy Blenny and raise you one Zebra Moray Eel! Who’s winning now?”

I absolutely love this part of cruising. Even on a bad day, a day of snorkeling is better than just about anything except maybe French Toast.

My work station. It feels a little like being in school and having homework that you love.

One of our favorite snorkeling sites is the bay of San Juanico. Huge pinnacle rocks standing in the north part of the bay offer refuge to myriads of fish and other salty beings, offering hours of snorkel play. Most boats tend to anchor up near those rocks, protected from most wind and swell. This year we decided to explore the southern half of Bahia San Juanico. Imposing rocky sandstone and volcanic guardians stand over the entrance to the southern most anchorage in the bay. Under the sea these rocks are completely encrusted with hard and soft corals, sea fans, anemones, and tiny fish. The colors are true to the spirit of Mexico: bright pinks, purples, greens, reds, oranges and yellows pop out from the more muted tones of the rocks and sand. It’s a psychedelic visual feast and I have trouble tearing myself away from the rocks; there is so much to see.

Rocky guardians  where the great snorkeling is found.

Yes, the month of June is definitely the sweet spot here. The weather is heating up, but that means the water is heating up, getting clearer, and the sargasso weed is dying off, exposing the bottom and its creatures beneath it. The nights are cool enough to sleep. Alas, that will not last forever as summer approaches. Temperatures of 98-100F are predicted next week. So for now we are enjoying our time.

This deluge photos show the true, unaltered colors under the Sea of Cortez. Can you blame us for wanting to hang out by the rocks?

Orange cup coral

Those sea fans!

What are these white feathery things? They are everywhere.

More sea fans.

Let’s take a break and talk about our cunning plans for the coming months. We’ve had so much flexibility it’s almost like we didn’t have a plan, cunning or otherwise. But we do have goals. They involve a trip to see Mike’s mom in Tennessee, a trip north to Washington to see our family there sometime in the near future, and a visit from Andrew and Jill in October. In the short term we are crossing over to San Carlos to visit the Brownlows from S/V Slow Motion before they leave for the summer. We’ll retrieve our car over there and hopefully it will still run after sitting in the lot since December. We are still making decisions about the timing for a haulout in Puerto Peñasco and how to get both our car and our boat there at the same time. We plan to leave the boat in Marina Real, San Carlos, for the few weeks we are gone to Tennessee. We think it will be safe from tropical storms there. Right now we have so many balls in the air we are kind of waiting for some to fall into place naturally.

Back to the soothing world underwater now because part of the stress of cruising is having a ton of goals but no solid plans. It’s a blessing and a curse. That can be said of many things.

Oh, and there’s a good possibility of a Pacific Crossing next year. Lots of things need to fall into place and there needs to be no interference from the Universe for that to happen. We are practicing non-attachment to outcome on that because at this point it’s a goal, not a plan. We throw ourselves on the mercy of the Universe and its ways and work our end of the agreement to make it happen.

I need a guide book to invertebrates. See the nudibranch?

He’s called a Mexican Barnacle Blenny, but I call him cute! So many of these little guys!

Redside Blenny

Not a great quality, but here’s a Carmine Triplefin (I think) for you. Along with his friend the barnacle blenny.

Currently at Bahia Santo Domingo, we travel today back into Bahia Concepcion to our favorite spot at Playa el Burro. Here’s what we saw there last year. Will we see another one? 

FYI, I’m using a fairly inexpensive Olympus Tough underwater camera. I’ve been pretty happy with it, considering it’s pricepoint and how easy it is to use. I actually like it for carrying around daily. If we make this Pacific Crossing thing happen, we’ll buy another one for Michael. He’s been using his old Nikon Coolpix underwater camera and the quality of the photos with this Olympus is much, much better.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on channel 22a.