Before the sun showed its first rays over the waters of San Gabriel Bay, where we had comfortably passed a calm night, some of us had the opportunity to see great numbers of fish in the spotlights of our ship— dozens of Thurston’s devil rays swimming in formations along the white bottom! But the sun eventually peeked over the horizon of the rough, magnificent volcanic mountains of the island, and we sailed on north to two tall islets, called “Los Islotes” where we planned on snorkeling with the sea lions. After anchoring there, and after a succulent breakfast, we began our snorkel operations, so that everyone that wanted to had that marvelous opportunity. Besides numerous small fish of many varying colors and species, the sea lion young entertained all of us very well, from blowing bubbles in our face, to pulling our fins!
Next we used our expedition landing craft to cruise around the islets, seeing sea lions and all the behaviors they show from sleeping to fighting among the males. A group of young ones porpoised around the island for us, causing great happiness and wonder from everybody! All good things must slow down, and we then sailed back to the big islands, immediately south of Los Islotes, to the northern half of the complex of Isla Espiritu Santo. There, at Ensenada Grande (Big Bight), we anchored and another great series of activities were undertaken, principal among them were hiking into the island and kayaking in the lovely bay.
Hiking led some of us up one of the great wide ravines of pink rock (compressed and fused 30-million-year-old volcanic ashes) that formed layers like any good sedimentary rock. The vegetation is formed by dozens of green bushes and some trees, as well as different cacti and tall cardones, that tallest of all cacti in the world (of course, the New World, home to the members of this interesting plant family). The path wends its way among huge boulders and spiny bushes, making us walk carefully between them! Here Adrian had the almost incredible opportunity of finding a black jackrabbit and using his camera to its maximum potential. It is definitely very difficult to photograph these shy animals in the wild.
The day wore slowly down, coming from a perfectly blue cloudless sky, to a gentle darkness. After an interesting Recap of the day during cocktail hour, we sat down to enjoy another great dinner.
