Bahía San Marte: Brushy Hikes and a Baja Bobcat

On February 21, we went a few kilometers south from busy Bahía Agua Verde to the distinctly un-busy anchorage at Bahía San Marte, about 130 km (80 miles) north of La Paz. Arroyos leading inland from the beach were lined as usual with lovely palo blanco trees (Lysiloma candidum), and Sue had fun finding new plants and butterflies to photograph, while Curtis counted as many as 21 mockingbirds in a single group of shrubs.

Heading out on a hike at Bahía San Marte.

Baja California Crucifixion Thorn (Castela peninsularis), a Baja endemic. Mockingbirds love the big juicy fruits.

A White-patched Skipper (Chiomara georgina).

The tiny Orange Skipperling butterfly (Copaeodes aurantiaca)
on Sweetbush (Bebbia juncea).

Anchorage neighbors Janet and Frederic, on their sailboat Kyrnos, joined us for a hike after we told them how gorgeous the arroyos and vistas were. The lush canyon that Curtis had spied on Google Earth turned out to be—OOPS—a nearly impenetrable bouldery scramble overtopped by thick leafy vines. We came back with our socks ruined and our bare legs scratched and bloody. Somehow we had forgotten our Arizona training to wear long pants when hiking in the desert. And although we preferred the less-grazed landscape here at Bahía San Marte, both of us admitted that a personal trail-clearing goat would have been welcome!

View northeast from a hike at Bahía San Marte; Fred, Janet, and Sue perch on boulders at far left.
Curtis took a different—and even brushier—hiking path, but it gave him good photo opportunities.

Bobcat on the beach at Bahía San Marte; photo by Janet Laffitte.

A day or two after the hike, Janet and Frederic alerted us to a bobcat in the bay. They had watched it walk the beach, climb out onto a rock in the water, crouch down to dunk its face (for a bath? a salty drink?), and then continue along the shore toward a group of pelicans, perhaps hoping for a pelican dinner. We got distant looks at the bobcat hiding among boulders, but by the time we kayaked over, it had disappeared. It seemed an odd setting and behavior for a bobcat, and we wondered if it might have been sick or stressed.

A Great Blue Heron stands guard over
Bahía San Marte.

Bobcats (Lynx rufus) occur across all of North America, from the northern forests on the U.S.–Canada border to the deserts of the Southwest and down to the tropical forest of southern Mexico. They are closely related to the more northern Canadian lynx, but bobcats are smaller, usually about twice the size of a domestic housecat. According to Wikipedia and other sources, there are 12 subspecies of bobcat, including one restricted to the Baja Peninsula: Lynx rufus peninsularis. The Baja bobcat was first described back in 1898 by Oldfield Thomas, a British zoologist, who examined two specimens sent to him from "Lower California" (Baja). Thomas wrote, "This animal is no doubt a pauperized race of the California lynx [probably Lynx rufus californicus, the California bobcat subspecies], from which it may be readily distinguished by its much smaller skull."

We see bobcats occasionally near our home in southeast Arizona, where they occur in grassland, woodland, and even on the outskirts of Tucson, but finding one on a wide-open beach in daylight was a surprise. Like many wild cats, bobcats are mainly crepuscular hunters, active at dawn and dusk. Their usual diet consists of rabbits and hares, but they will eat anything from insects to geese to deer. They are also known to take a swim now and then. We like to think the Baja bobcat at San Marte was just going for a dip on a hot afternoon.

Bahía San Marte.

An Intertidal Exploration: Gulf of California (Baja Sur and Sonora)

In 1940, Biologist Ed Ricketts and writer John Steinbeck spent 6 weeks exploring the intertidal zone of the Gulf of California. They came equipped with crew, supplies, and extensive biological knowledge, and they returned to Monterey with thousands of specimens in jars, plus extensive notes that would become The Log from the Sea of Cortez. We spent 9 weeks exploring about 125 miles of the Gulf Coast of Baja California Sur with a point-and-shoot camera and a minimum of invertebrate knowledge, returning with thousands of photographs and more questions than answers.

Steinbeck compares his and Ricketts' collecting expedition to that of Charles Darwin on the Beagle:

He was called a "naturalist." He wanted to see everything, rocks and flora and fauna; marine and terrestrial. We came to envy Darwin on his sailing ship. He had so much room and so much time. He could capture his animals and keep them alive and watch them. He had years instead of weeks, and he saw so many things. Often we envied the inadequate transportation of his time—the Beagle couldn't get about rapidly. She moved slowly along under sail. And we can imagine that young Darwin, probably in a bos'n's chair hung over the side, with a dip-net in his hands, scooping up jellyfish. When he went inland, he rode a horse or walked. This is the proper pace for a naturalist. Faced with all things he cannot hurry. We must have time to think and to look and to consider. And the modern process—that of looking quickly at the whole field and then diving down to a particular—was reversed by Darwin. Out of long long consideration of the parts he emerged with a sense of the whole. Where we wished for a month at a collecting station and took two days, Darwin stayed three months. Of course he could see and tabulate. It was the pace that made the difference. And in the writing of Darwin, as in his thinking, there is the slow heave of a sailing ship, and the patience of waiting for a tide. The results are bound up with the pace.

Tidepooling can be a very addictive activity. You walk along looking for movement, patterns, or colors, or you gently turn over rocks to see what hides beneath (always replacing the rocks so that the animals get their homes back). Spotting an anemone waving its tentacles, you lean in closer and discover an entire world in miniature: a living diorama hollowed out of rock and filled with a few cups of seawater. A patch of seaweed is host to a tiny nudibranch grazing on its favorite food. A flicking movement turns out to be a crab sorting through pebbles. A small jet of water from under a rock ledge might be the octopus Sue glimpsed for a millisecond before it slipped away. There were plants that looked like animals or rocks and animals that looked like plants or rocks. Everywhere we went, there were things we did not recognize and could not categorize even at a basic level. This constant exposure to the unknown—combined with a relative lack of schedule and obligation for each day—was somewhat intoxicating and one of the greatest pleasures of our trip.

Below is a sampling of what we saw. Some images are identified, some are tentatively identified, others are perhaps misidentified (or labeled with outdated names), and still others are included because they are intriguing or fun. Most of the photos were taken with the camera held just above the water's surface.


NUDIBRANCHS

Mexican dancer nudibranch (Elysia diomedea), Sue's favorite nudibranch, with its fringes and bright blue horns. 2" long. Isla Coyote, Bahia Concepcion. 

Ink-stain nudibranch (Polycera alabe) gazing out over its underwater domain. About ⅔" long. Roca Solitaria off Bahia Agua Verde.

Aeolid nudibranch species. About 1" long. Isla Danzante.

Unknown nudibranch. About ⅔" long. Roca Solitaria off Bahia Agua Verde.

SEA STARS

Bradley's sea star (Mithrodia bradleyi). Honeymoon Cove, Isla Danzante.

Common sun star (Heliaster kubiniji). Bahia San Pedro (Sonora). Often seen just at the tide line, washed by waves.

Yellow-spotted star (Pharia pyramidata). Playa Coyote, Bahia Concepcion. We saw many of these while snorkeling but they were rarely close to the surface.

Sea star. Isla Coyote, Bahia Concepcion.

WORMS

Common fireworm (Eurythoe complanata), a stinging worm. 2" long. Bahia San Marte. John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts collected hundreds of these during their 1940 expedition to the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez).

Spiral-gilled tube worm (Spirobranchus giganteus). Each set of spirals was about half an inch across. Roca Solitaria off Bahia Agua Verde.

Featherduster worm (Sabellid sp.). The fan closes up quickly when the worm senses danger, such as the shadow of Sue's camera, and then it reopens gradually after about 30 seconds. Bahia San Marte.

Flatworm species. About 1" long. Roca Solitaria off Bahia Agua Verde.

SEA ANEMONES

Anemone (Bunodosoma sp.?) with sea urchins. Bahia San Pedro (Sonora).

Warty anemone species (Bunodosoma sp.)? What a color! Roca Solitaria off Bahia Agua Verde.

Warty anemone (Bunodosoma sp.). Bahia San Pedro (Sonora).

Warty anemone (Bunodosoma sp.). Bahia San Pedro (Sonora).

Anemone (Bunodosoma sp.?). Isla Danzante.

Mat anemone (Palythoa ignota)? A colonial species. Caleta San Juanico, Gulf Coast of BCS.

Warty anemone (Bunodosoma sp.). Bahia San Pedro (Sonora).

Anemone? Bahia San Pedro (Sonora).

CRABS

Lumpy-claw crab (Eriphia squamosa), an aptly named critter. Bahia San Marte.

Unknown small crab from Bahia San Marte. Sue calls it the "domino" crab.

Unidentified crab. Its shell is camouflaged with green, red, yellow, and white splotches. Can you tell where the crabs shell stops and the rock begins?

Curtis found this small crab on our anchor chain as we were leaving Bahia Concepcion (BCS) to cross back to Sonora. In the photo below, you can see she is carrying eggs! We put her back in the water before crossing.

SEA URCHINS

Black sea urchin (Stomopneustes variolaris)? Roca Solitaria off Bahia Agua Verde.

SEAWEED

Colorful seaweed? Sue found it difficult at times to distinguish between animals and plants. Roca Solitaria, off
Bahía Agua Verde.

SNAILS

Unknown snails with wonderful geometrically marked shells. Isla Danzante.

CORALS

Coral at Caleta San Juanico, Gulf Coast. We saw more colorful corals in deeper water but could not get photos.

Coral? Bahia San Pedro (Sonora).

HYDROIDS (maybe)

Maybe a stinging hydroid, although there are other similar-looking organisms. Roca Solitaria, off Bahía Agua Verde.

Hydroid? Roca Solitaria, off Bahía Agua Verde.

MISCELLANEOUS, not in perfect focus

Tiger snake eel (Myrichthys maculosus): a lucky daytime find! Its head was in a crevice so it didn't notice Sue's kayak
drifting overhead. Bahia Concepcion, near Playa Coyote.

Venus's girdle (Cestum veneris), a type of comb jelly. At least 12" long. Sue saw this creature swimming next to her kayak in Honeymoon Cove, Isla Danzante.

Cortez barrel shrimp (Gnathophyllum panamense). About 1" long. Bahia San Marte.

Sue's motley assortment of invertebrate and intertidal fauna field guides:

• Sea of Cortez Marine Invertebrates, Alex Kerstitch & Hans Bertsch
• Marine Animals of Baja California: A Guide to the Common Fishes and Invertebrates, Daniel W. Gotshall
• Tidepool Animals from the Gulf of California, Wesley M. Farmer
• The Edge of the Sea of Cortez: Tidewalkers' Guide to the Upper Gulf of California, Betty Hupp & Marilyn Malone
• Common Seaweeds of the Gulf of California [bilingual], Mark D. Readdie, Marla Ranelletti, Richard M. McCourt

Dates, Goats, and Abarrotes: Making a Living in Bahia Agua Verde (BCS)

We stayed a few nights in the popular and occasionally crowded anchorage at Bahía Agua Verde (Baja California Sur), where there is a small village with a school, a few tiendas (stores), a large goat dairy or huerta, a tiny beach restaurant, and many panga fishermen. The first day, we hiked to a date palm oasis north of town, accompanied by an independent-minded dog that greeted us as we beached our kayaks and joined us on the trail. "Chico Grande," as Sue called him, stayed with us most of the day, until our slow birding and botanizing pace wore him out.

We wouldn't have known about the date palm oasis if we hadn't run into Vincente, the local policía who drove up and introduced himself as we hiked along the road with our binoculars and daypacks. Vincente asked us what we were looking for, and when we said aves (birds), he told us about the oasis. He also explained that he was in charge of seguridad (security) and turismo (tourism) for Agua Verde, including making sure that locals did not pester visitors for money or handouts. He was proud of his town.

The anchorage at Bahia Agua Verde, looking southeast.

Date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) were introduced to Baja by eighteenth-century Jesuit missionaries, who planted them near their missions as a food crop. Since that time, the non-native palms have spread on their own up and down the coast; solitary plants can often be seen on beaches far from settled areas. The palm grove at Agua Verde was extensive and bordered a fresh or more likely brackish lagoon separated from the Gulf waters by a low sandspit. Some of the palm trunks coiled up off the ground like giant serpents; others towered above us as we walked. The lagoon was a magnet for birds, so Curtis spent time photographing scrub-jays, orioles, and others as they nervously approached the water to drink or bathe.

Some date palm trunks were coiled and twisted on the ground like gigantic scaly reptiles.

The date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) at Agua Verde grew as tall as 30 or 40 feet. 

Date palms along the lagoon at Agua Verde.

A Western Scrub-jay gets a drink from the lagoon.

A male Hooded Oriole waits his turn.

Safety in numbers: White-crowned and Clay-colored sparrows line up for a drink.

The following day, we hiked the main arroyo that leads through the town of Agua Verde and up toward the mountains, passing more than a few herds of goats attended by their goatherders. The wide gravel wash featured many white-barked palo blanco trees (Lysiloma candidum) and one gorgeous Palmer Mesquite (Prosopis palmeri), an endemic tree species with bright yellow flowers and serious thorns. Woolly desert-lavender (Hyptis laniflora), another Baja endemic, waved its white pompoms in the breeze. Curtis tried his best to photograph the Baja endemic Xantus’s Hummingbird, but we had to settle for mere excellent looks. Sue collected plant specimens, but apart from trees and shrubs, the "pickings" along the wash were rather slim due to hungry goats! When we were a couple of miles out of town and started hiking uphill, the understory plants finally began to appear.

Green hillside with palo blanco trees (Lysiloma candidum).

Bright yellow catkins (clusters of tiny flowers) on the endemic Palmer Mesquite (Prosopis palmeri).

Woolly desert lavender (Hyptis laniflora) with small purple flowers in large "pompoms."

Senita or "old man" cactus (Lophocereus schottii), named for the gray beards on its stems.

Chuparrosa (Justicia californica) growing up through a clump of senita cactus.

The endemic Gray Thrasher was a common songster in the beach scrub.

After our hike, we stopped at a tienda near the beach to resupply before kayaking back to the boat. The tienda was a square concrete block building with two doors, shelves on every wall plus freestanding ones in the center, and a small cooler or freezer powered by a car battery and an inverter. The tiny building held an amazing variety of abarrotes (groceries), including fresh produce, flats of eggs, boxed milk, cereal, Craisins (!), chips, flour, rice, beans, canned salsa, canned vegetables, hard candies, motor oil, laundry detergent, baggies of dog kibble, and sunscreen. A young girl came in looking for palomitas (popcorn), and the storekeeper asked if she wanted it popped (cocida) or uncooked. Outside under a shadecloth were large refrigerated cases holding bags of lettuce, cucumbers, cabbage, carrots, calabacitas (squash), salchichas (hotdogs), chicken, and ground beef. From Agua Verde to Mex Highway 1 is 25 miles of rough dirt road, followed by another 50+ highway miles to Ciudad Constitución where Sue was told the vegetables came from. Talk about entrepreneurial commitment!

We bought delicious avocados, firm Roma tomatoes, garlic, tiny sweet bananas, fresh flour tortillas, iceberg lettuce for the crunch, excellent cucumbers, a can of Clavel (evaporated milk) to try in our coffee, and a thick slice of fresh goat cheese from the local huerta. We wanted eggs, too, but had forgotten to bring our plastic egg containers with us, and paddling back to the boat with 12 to 24 loose eggs in a sack sounded like a recipe for, at the very least, disappointment. As it was, we were relieved that our tienda goodies, shoes, backpacks, cameras, binoculars, and Sue’s plant press all made it safely back to Cilantro, stuffed into various recesses of the narrow kayaks. At some point, we’ll have to inflate our dinghy to do some proper provisioning, but that day hasn’t yet arrived.

Goats and goat dairies are apparently a big part of the Baja way of life. Goat cheese is popular with visiting cruisers and beach campers, and goats themselves are often the main course at fiestas. They are well suited to the rugged landscape and talus slopes of the Sierra La Giganta, the rugged mountain range that defines this section of the Baja Gulf Coast. We have seen the occasional cow or cow pie on this trip, but there appears to be very little grass for them to eat, and nimble caprines (from the Latin capra or caper, "goat") far outnumber the lumbering bovines. 

A herd of well-fed goats returns to Agua Verde from the nearby mountains.

Although the goats had munched heavily on the landscape around the bay and town, it was hard to lay blame on their herders for trying to make a living. We all participate in many different local economies—where we live, where we work, where we travel, where the items that we purchase come from—and there are few perfect choices. How do you tell a small-town goat tender that his charges are eating too many native plants? And we admit we enjoyed our goat cheese for many days after leaving Bahia Agua Verde.

Sunrise from the anchorage at Bahia Agua Verde.

Next post: A tidepool picture show.