Isla San Ildefonso
The morning was a bit chilly due to the north winds that had stopped much of the Christmas air travel. The first light colored the broad bands of clouds a pretty pink.
Isla San Ildefonso is a wild and isolated place, windswept and barren of trees. This flat-topped island is formed of a mass of black craggy rocks that rise about 70 feet. Its entire margin looks like it was torn from something else. A few plants hang on for dear life. Inhospitable I’d say, but it’s an ideal place for birds. Who’s who in the order Pelicaniformes were here. Pelicans, cormorants, brown and blue-footed boobies, and frigatebirds watched us as we poked into small waterways and wound around offshore rocks. Eared grebes looked at us, paddled and dove just beyond reach as great blue herons stared intently into the water. A few people saw two peregrine falcons flying at high speed along the cliffs or perching on ledges. Ravens were there too. It was a great place to explore, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
As we left Isla San Ildefonso a group of bottlenose dolphins swam with us and led the ship to a cetacean extravaganza. “Blue whale at 2 o’clock” came over the public address system. The sighting was especially lucky, because blue whales aren’t frequently seen this time of year. This massive creature looked like an island of mottled gray floating in the distance. These animals can be as long as 3 railroad cars lined up and weigh the same as 30 elephants. This one seemed huge, as the blow shot skyward and drifted in the air like campfire smoke. The whale was down for predictable intervals of 12 minutes, which allowed us to see it at the surface over several dive sequences.
As time passed, the natural history staff kept looking at something else in the distance. The objects were at first too far away to see well, but we could see numerous little blows and dolphin-like dorsal fins. The ship turned, speeded up and soon we were surrounded by short-finned pilot whales. To write that the guests and naturalists were excited would be quite the understatement. People were dashing about screaming, “They’re over here, they’re under the boat, look at that, oh no, my card has run out, be careful Elise, they’re going to the back.” This kind of cacophony isn’t terribly literate, but it sure is fun.
The pilot whales seemed to have no concern about our being in their midst, but they were curious. These 2- to 3-ton creatures are a beautiful shiny black with big watermelon-shaped heads and large dorsal fins. Older males have an elongate fin a third again as large as those of other individuals. There were numerous younger animals like the one in the photo today that were perhaps born within the last month or two. One youngster swam on his side at times showing his pectoral fin and spy-hopped next to mom. There were well over 40 animals in two groups and another of larger males. We watched them for over an hour and then attended an informative oceanography program. A daily recap and dinner soon followed.
The morning was a bit chilly due to the north winds that had stopped much of the Christmas air travel. The first light colored the broad bands of clouds a pretty pink.
Isla San Ildefonso is a wild and isolated place, windswept and barren of trees. This flat-topped island is formed of a mass of black craggy rocks that rise about 70 feet. Its entire margin looks like it was torn from something else. A few plants hang on for dear life. Inhospitable I’d say, but it’s an ideal place for birds. Who’s who in the order Pelicaniformes were here. Pelicans, cormorants, brown and blue-footed boobies, and frigatebirds watched us as we poked into small waterways and wound around offshore rocks. Eared grebes looked at us, paddled and dove just beyond reach as great blue herons stared intently into the water. A few people saw two peregrine falcons flying at high speed along the cliffs or perching on ledges. Ravens were there too. It was a great place to explore, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
As we left Isla San Ildefonso a group of bottlenose dolphins swam with us and led the ship to a cetacean extravaganza. “Blue whale at 2 o’clock” came over the public address system. The sighting was especially lucky, because blue whales aren’t frequently seen this time of year. This massive creature looked like an island of mottled gray floating in the distance. These animals can be as long as 3 railroad cars lined up and weigh the same as 30 elephants. This one seemed huge, as the blow shot skyward and drifted in the air like campfire smoke. The whale was down for predictable intervals of 12 minutes, which allowed us to see it at the surface over several dive sequences.
As time passed, the natural history staff kept looking at something else in the distance. The objects were at first too far away to see well, but we could see numerous little blows and dolphin-like dorsal fins. The ship turned, speeded up and soon we were surrounded by short-finned pilot whales. To write that the guests and naturalists were excited would be quite the understatement. People were dashing about screaming, “They’re over here, they’re under the boat, look at that, oh no, my card has run out, be careful Elise, they’re going to the back.” This kind of cacophony isn’t terribly literate, but it sure is fun.
The pilot whales seemed to have no concern about our being in their midst, but they were curious. These 2- to 3-ton creatures are a beautiful shiny black with big watermelon-shaped heads and large dorsal fins. Older males have an elongate fin a third again as large as those of other individuals. There were numerous younger animals like the one in the photo today that were perhaps born within the last month or two. One youngster swam on his side at times showing his pectoral fin and spy-hopped next to mom. There were well over 40 animals in two groups and another of larger males. We watched them for over an hour and then attended an informative oceanography program. A daily recap and dinner soon followed.
