San Pedro Martir Island and offshore waters
The territorial calls of the numerous big California sea lion bulls greeted us as we dropped the anchor at San Pedro Martir Island shortly after sunrise. Located pretty much at mid-distance between the peninsula of Baja California and mainland Mexico, San Pedro Martir is the most isolated island of the Gulf of California; its remoteness has also prevented a higher degree of exploitation of the waters around it. Life thrives there, and we circumnavigated the island by Zodiac. The abundance of sea lions, blue-footed and brown boobies, pelicans and frigate-birds amazed everyone, and we all had excellent views of them. Back on board the Sea Voyager, we raised the anchor and sailed towards the deep waters off the island. However, the feathery show continued as numerous juvenile boobies followed the ship and some even landed on her. Perhaps they confused us with yet another white, guano-covered rock! One young brown booby even landed on the bow deck and couldn’t get airborne again by himself…
The waters around San Pedro Martir are very rich, as the island is close to the three most important up-welling areas of the Gulf. Before long, we spotted the first of many sperm whales. Many whales were distributed over a large area, and we spent all the afternoon watching them. Their massive heads seemed out of proportion in relationship to their length, and we all got extremely good views of several of them that approached the ship, including a big male that raised its enormous flukes just off the bow (see photo)! We were able to witness a number of different behaviors, like head-slapping, lob-tailing and breaching. And as we moved from a group of sperm whales to another, the afternoon slipped away in a most enjoyable way, making the perfect ending for a great week!
The territorial calls of the numerous big California sea lion bulls greeted us as we dropped the anchor at San Pedro Martir Island shortly after sunrise. Located pretty much at mid-distance between the peninsula of Baja California and mainland Mexico, San Pedro Martir is the most isolated island of the Gulf of California; its remoteness has also prevented a higher degree of exploitation of the waters around it. Life thrives there, and we circumnavigated the island by Zodiac. The abundance of sea lions, blue-footed and brown boobies, pelicans and frigate-birds amazed everyone, and we all had excellent views of them. Back on board the Sea Voyager, we raised the anchor and sailed towards the deep waters off the island. However, the feathery show continued as numerous juvenile boobies followed the ship and some even landed on her. Perhaps they confused us with yet another white, guano-covered rock! One young brown booby even landed on the bow deck and couldn’t get airborne again by himself…
The waters around San Pedro Martir are very rich, as the island is close to the three most important up-welling areas of the Gulf. Before long, we spotted the first of many sperm whales. Many whales were distributed over a large area, and we spent all the afternoon watching them. Their massive heads seemed out of proportion in relationship to their length, and we all got extremely good views of several of them that approached the ship, including a big male that raised its enormous flukes just off the bow (see photo)! We were able to witness a number of different behaviors, like head-slapping, lob-tailing and breaching. And as we moved from a group of sperm whales to another, the afternoon slipped away in a most enjoyable way, making the perfect ending for a great week!
