Magdalena Bay

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but Sylvia Earle, speaking to us today, stressed that the experience is worth a thousand pictures.

For the last five days we have immersed ourselves in new and exciting experiences in Baja California. We have gathered a plethora of mental images accompanied by solitary moments of silence and silly shared experiences. Through the variations of desert landscape, changing seascape and diverse wildlife we are building a lifetime of memories.

This morning we entered the calm, protected waters of Magdalena Bay. The undulating dunes were a striking contrast to the cardon-studded islands of the Gulf of California. For the afternoon we navigated north in Hull Canal, viewing an assortment of herons, egrets, cormorants and pelicans perched on mangroves, or feeding amongst the newly exposed mudflats. From our experiences in the Gulf, we knew what to look for in the cetaceanal sense, and were excited to find the drifting puffs of whale exhalations emanating from the surrounding waters. By the time we anchored, we had found numerous gray whale cow/calf pairs, a promising sign for tomorrow’s Zodiac excursions.

After anchoring, we had the opportunity for a shore landing and a short scamper in the sand dunes. Fine flour-like sand sifted between our toes while Isla Magdalena became our afternoon playground. Tracks of herons, crabs, beetles, jack rabbits and coyotes crisscrossed the dune faces. While we did not see any of these inhabitants, their tracks were a sign of their presence earlier in the day. We left our tracks in the sand, but in the process gathered another handful of precious memories and experiences to dwell upon in the days to come.

A few of our guests have reflected on their experiences and share with you below a few short poems.


Ode to Gil Grosvenor

Sailed again with Chairman Gil
Check his geographic skill
Navigator across the world,
Orion is still his starry pearl

Sea lions swim with Wiley,
Whales leap and dive
Saluting our skipper, eighty
With ideas and hopes still weighty.

-Dorothy and Bill Mc Sweeny


For Tierney

She has a passion
She loves molas, they are blobs
She wears nice pig tails.

By Charlie Moore, age 8, Annabel Moore, age 10 and Nitty Moore, age 6