A pod of twenty Risso's dolphins, a.k.a. "grampus," was encountered today in deep water off Isla San Esteban, Midriff Islands, Sea of Cortez. A few older members of the group displayed very white scarred bodies.
We watched a liquid green flash at sunrise from the beach at San Esteban and discovered endemic reptile species on this small saintly island: pinto chuckwallas, spiny-tailed iguanas, and leaf-toed geckos.
In the afternoon we toured the waters around Isla San Pedro Martir, an isolated island bastion of guano, home to thousands of nesting seabirds, and hundreds of California sea lions. After a sunset green flash, recap and dinner, we used a video microscope and marveled at a myriad of miniscule alien lifeforms from the sea that were collected in a plankton tow.
