Bahia Santa Maria and Canal de Soledad
After a peaceful night at anchor, we got to experience our first day of adventures in Bahia Magdalena. Our first shore destination was Bahia Santa Maria, which is sometimes called “Half Moon Bay.” The magnificent dune environment of Magdalena Island is a really magical landscape, and here is where we had our first walk of the trip. Some of us walked across the island all the way to the Pacific side. We found many interesting things. A coyote ran between the dunes not too far from us, and later we discovered that it was probably feeding on a dolphin carcass that had been well-visited by scavengers. People enjoyed a peaceful walk discovering natural treasures like sand dollars and shells of all kinds.
Back on board the National Geographic Sea Bird, our local pilot Alejandro Camacho and his son were already waiting for us to steer the ship north. Alejandro has been piloting our ships through the Canal de Soledad for many years. This is an extremely tricky place to navigate, and with only a few feet of water under our hull, our pilot safely maneuvers the ship. When the channel narrows down, we can get an extraordinary bird watching experience. Great egrets, great blue herons, Pacific loons, and a small species of goose called Brant, are only a few examples of the birds we saw today.
Once we passed a place called “Colina Coyote” we started having our first gray whale sightings. As we navigated slowly, we could see many mothers and their calves, which by now are mostly over a month old. Mothers and calves find protection here in the lagoons of Baja California, and they are a species of great whale that are literally Mexican by birth.
We sailed past Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos, a small fishing town, and headed towards the northern opening of the bay. We dropped the anchor to spend the night, not too far from “Boca de Soldedad,” where tomorrow we hope to have a great whale-watching experience.
