Isla Los Islotes and the Gulf of California
This was a day bookended by dolphins gliding across the clear, calm water of the Gulf of California and coming in to ride the bow of our little ship, the National Geographic Sea Bird…to all of our delight. That is the way our day began and ended and the middle was filled with beautiful weather and some extraordinary experiences.
After the initial dolphin encounter, we spotted a pair of fin whales and a humpback whale in the distance in the short half-hour it took us to get to our anchorage at Isla Los Islotes. Once anchored on the south side of the islands, some of us put on our shorty wetsuits with snorkel gear in hand and went swimming and snorkeling with California sea lions. The water was clear and calm and the sea lions were very playful, sometimes actually pulling on our fins and swimming toward us at full speed and only turning away when just a few inches from our masks. It was incredible to see how graceful these animals are in the water since they look somewhat ungainly on land.
While the swimmers were enjoying their time with the sea lions and looking at the wonderful variety of fish, the non-swimmers took a ride around the islands by Zodiac to observe the sea lions hauled out on the rocks. This population of sea lions is genetically distinct from the Pacific population and number about 30,000 animals. They breed and pup here and on 14 different rookery sites in the gulf. However, breeding and birthing happen later in the year, around the end of May through early July, and the sea lions we watched today were females with pups of the year and non-breeding males. In addition to the sea lions we had the opportunity to see blue-footed boobies, frigatebirds and turkey vultures on land and flying around the islands. It is always wonderful to visit protected island sites such as these where there is such an abundance of life, both on the land and in the rich, productive waters nearby.
During lunch we began our afternoon search for marine animals north of Los Islotes in the area of Isla San Jose. Along the way we saw a host of seabirds which included cormorants, pelicans, least and black storm petrels, shearwaters and murlettes. After searching diligently the whole afternoon, out efforts were rewarded in the beautiful late afternoon light with our second school of dolphins that surfaced and leapt in the mirror-like reflective surface of the flat calm sea. What a treat to spend our whole afternoon cruising this section of the Gulf of California between these beautiful desert islands and the spectacular layer-cake volcanics of the Baja Peninsula.
