With the warm welcome of Loreto trailing our wake, we arose to our Baja California ad-Venture with a classically Cortéz-ian sunrise. Fiery light illuminated brown pelicans, Cocos boobies, Heermann’s and Bonaparte’s gulls while a pod of common dolphins raced to catch up to the stretch class. Rounding Isla San Ildefonso a mysterious splash revealed an unidentified shark concluding a kill near the surface beneath a buzzing horde of endemic yellow-footed gulls. Copious gelatinous animals—jellyfish, siphonophores, and comb jellies—streamed by as we rounded the corner into Bahía Concepcíon.
A delicious meal while anchoring opened the floodgates to our first seaside activities on a rising tide, with some cruising in Zodiacs and others walking the shoreline amidst the mangrove’s oyster-soaked, soaring stems. Ospreys, least sandpipers, and swallows joined in the bio blitz while Cortez stingrays, flatworms, and giant Pinna mussels rounded out the intertidal explorations.
Tonight, we sail northward. The Baja blast has just begun!
