Isla del Carmen and environs, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Having met a beautiful sunrise, we navigated the waters in the vicinity of Isla Del Carmen, in the Gulf of California. With wonderful weather, we slowly moved around in search of those marvelous marine mammals: the whales. And pretty soon, we found a group of bottlenose dolphins who ever so intelligent and playful, were soon bow riding our ship. Beautiful views were had. And then, shortly before lunch, four pygmy sperm whales were spotted, quite far from the ship. These are extremely rare animals to see, and almost nothing is known of their biology. We saw these animals as they rested at the surface, called “logging”, and were always a certain distance from the ship. After a good time of observation we moved north to Bahia Ballandra, in the northwestern side of the island, where we enjoyed kayaking as well as hiking on the island. Many plants were in bloom and attracting big numbers of desert butterflies and bees.
The bay has a good number of mangrove trees, mainly black mangrove, but also some red mangroves. And it was here that we saw a lively immature little blue heron, which in this phase is white!
Having met a beautiful sunrise, we navigated the waters in the vicinity of Isla Del Carmen, in the Gulf of California. With wonderful weather, we slowly moved around in search of those marvelous marine mammals: the whales. And pretty soon, we found a group of bottlenose dolphins who ever so intelligent and playful, were soon bow riding our ship. Beautiful views were had. And then, shortly before lunch, four pygmy sperm whales were spotted, quite far from the ship. These are extremely rare animals to see, and almost nothing is known of their biology. We saw these animals as they rested at the surface, called “logging”, and were always a certain distance from the ship. After a good time of observation we moved north to Bahia Ballandra, in the northwestern side of the island, where we enjoyed kayaking as well as hiking on the island. Many plants were in bloom and attracting big numbers of desert butterflies and bees.
The bay has a good number of mangrove trees, mainly black mangrove, but also some red mangroves. And it was here that we saw a lively immature little blue heron, which in this phase is white!
