With calm seas the Sea Bird spent the night heading north and the sunrise found us at the south end of Isla Monserrate. The seas were glassy calm and the quality of light on the Sierra de La Giganta mountains of the peninsula was a photographer’s dream. Breakfast was interrupted with the call of marine mammals ahead and we dashed to the rails for amazing views of over 500 toothed whales of the common dolphin variety. Conditions were ideal for our first marine mammal encounter of our expedition and there were numerous oohhhs and aahhhs as the dolphins delighted us with bowriding, surfing our stern wake, and short jumps in the air.
Common dolphins are year round residents of the Sea of Cortez. The smaller family units will always travel together, and at times will gather with other units to form larger groups called pods and this is what we were fortunate enough to find today. Later in the morning following another encounter of common dolphins we headed ashore at Isla Carmen for exploring the desert ecology with hiking and also kayaking.
