We were prepping
Cilantro for departure from Honeymoon Cove
on Isla Danzante on the morning of Tuesday, 16 February, planning to head south
along the Baja California Sur coast to Bahía Agua Verde. As we worked on
stowing and securing the cabin and cockpit, we heard blowing sounds in the
direction of the channel between us and the mainland. It turned out to be a
small pod of whales passing southward, about a mile offshore.
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| Calm waters as we left Honeymoon Cove. |
“Let’s go look for them!” said Curtis. Sue laughed and pointed
out that we were nowhere near ready to go, with many items strewn about
on deck, in the cockpit, and on countertops below. It looked like we had lots
of small children on board and no responsible adults. So instead, we grabbed
the binoculars and watched the distant bodies surfacing and submerging. There
were two or three small whales plus a large one that we estimated at 30–40 feet
long. They were dark gray or black and had a hooked (falcate) dorsal fin. We
couldn’t see the shape and size of the spout, which can be a helpful
characteristic for identification. In fact, we couldn’t see any spout at all.
Eventually we had tidied up and battened down—we were now “looking
yar” as our friend Bob in Maine likes to say—so we weighed anchor and motored
out of Honeymoon Cove, heading west into the channel, our immediate destination
being the aptly named Puerto Escondido (“hidden port”), the entrance to which
was tucked and camouflaged behind a rocky headland on the BCS mainland due west of our anchorage.
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| Puerto Escondido is concealed behind the low, brown hills in front, while the Sierra La Giganta looms in the background. |
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| Distant unidentified whale. We had many such sightings! |
Before we got there, however, we spotted a ruckus on the
surface to the north. More whales! We headed the boat in that direction and Sue
started snapping photos. Dark gray to blackish bodies with falcate dorsal fins
again. These whales seemed smaller than the first group, but it might be that
the pod we spotted earlier had reversed course and come north. Body size is very
difficult to gauge at a distance, we are finding, and many other identifying features are impossible to see unless you are right next to them. The small whales in this
group showed a very arched profile as they dove, making them appear
dolphin-like, and even the larger one seemed to have a more rounded back than
we saw in the earlier pod. Reviewing the photos later (which were rather terrible), we could see some
callosities or rough bumps on the larger whale. Again, we could hear them
blowing but never saw a spout. Perhaps they were Minke whales, which grow to 35
feet and rarely have a noticeable blow? So far we are 1 for 3 on identifying
dark whales. We did see (and identify!) a solitary humpback whale back on February 11 as we neared Isla Danzante.
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| Cilantro at the Puerto Escondido fuel dock. |
We motored into Puerto Escondido without further excitement
and tied up at the fuel dock. In 1940, John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts stopped here during their biological expedition through the Gulf of California collecting marine invertebrates and other intertidal creatures. They scooped up unfamiliar three-foot-long sea cucumbers from the outer harbor and accepted an invitation to join a bighorn sheep hunt in the nearby Sierra La Giganta, which forms a dramatic backdrop for Puerto Escondido. (We will do some bighorn hunting of our own a few weeks from now. More about this in a later post.) Here's how Steinbeck described Puerto Escondido in
The Log from the Sea of Cortez:
If one wished to design a secret personal bay, one would probably build something very like this little harbor. A point swings about, making a small semicircular bay fringed with bright-green mangroves, and only when one has turned inside this outer bay can one see that there is a second, secret bay beyond—a long narrow bay with an entrance not more than fifty feet wide at flood....On the stone-bordered sandspit which is the southern block to the true inner Puerto Escondido there was a new stone building not quite finished, with no one about it.
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| Parking lot at Puerto Escondido. |
In 2016, the stone building was still standing, although it looked weathered in comparison with the sharp-edged, modern structures built nearby by FONATUR, the tourism arm of the Mexican government. In the inner harbor, the mangroves competed for space with concrete docks, a palm tree–lined parking lot, and the fuel station, which was our reason for stopping here. Curtis brought out two diesel jugs and a gas can to be filled while Sue disposed of our nonsinkable, nonburnable garbage (mainly plastics) in a dumpster.
The forecast had predicted light to moderate northwest
winds, so we hoped for an easy downwind sail. The winds never materialized, however, so we motored southward all day on mostly glassy seas. This turned out to be a
boon for wildlife viewing. When you have sails up and spot something
interesting on the water, it’s difficult and messy to stop or turn and head
over to it. In addition, windy days make for a choppy water surface, and anything
smaller than a breaching whale is less obvious.
As we plotted our passage between Los Candeleros (the “candlesticks”), a series of 3 tiny islets, and the mainland, Chief Spotter
Curtis went to work. Big messy splashes in the distance turned out to be large rays, probably manta rays, doing spectacular backflips and belly smacks as they
came back down. It was impossible to get a photo because you never knew where
and when one might come hurtling out of the water. Mantas and other rays are famous for leaping, but none of the books we consulted have an answer for why
they do it.
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Los Candeleros ("the candlesticks"): Isla La Primera, Isla Las Tijeras
("the scissors"), and Isla Pardo. |
As we passed between Isla Pardo (one of the “candlesticks”) and
Punta Candeleros on the mainland, a commotion at the surface drew our attention.
Small silvery fish leapt out of the water, followed, amazingly, by the “sword”
and gaping mouth of a marlin! The marlin thrashed about, trying to club and
slash at the small fish with its bill. We have no idea if this one was successful, as
prey and predator disappeared quickly back into the sea. Over the course of the
day, we spotted several more marlins swimming or basking at the surface, now
recognizable to us by their spiny dorsal fin far ahead of the narrow,
curving, top tail fin. They were extremely wary creatures, never
letting us get close for a photo or better view.
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| Blue whale spouting! |
A couple of miles southeast of our course, Curtis spotted a
leftover whale spout drifting like a cloud of mist against the backdrop of Isla
Montserrate. We peered and stared through our binoculars, seeing more drifting
spray, and Sue thought she saw a big gray shape at one point, but we were unable
to make out anything with certainty. Some minutes passed, and we spotted another
big vertical spout, now east of our position and about a mile away. Tall
columnar spouts are characteristic of some of the largest whales in the Gulf of
California, including blue whale, fin whale, and Sei whale. The whale spouted a
couple more times and then sounded, giving us a good look at its long, light
gray back and tiny dorsal fin set very far back on the body, as well as a
sidelong look at its flukes as it dove. Blue whale! The largest mammal on the
planet. WOW.
We saw more manta rays leaping and belly-flopping, and even
motored past a few that were swimming quietly at the surface with their
wingtips held out of the water and their odd white pectoral fins projected
forward on either side of their mouths. As soon as we pulled out a camera, however, they slid quickly away! It was a thrill to glimpse these
creatures with their 6-foot or greater wingspans, formerly feared and known as
“devil fishes,” before it was widely acknowledged that they eat only zooplankton and
tiny fishes. We are frequently surprised—and dismayed—when we encounter people who think of nature and its critters as dangerous. We aren't naïve about the threat posed by a great white shark or a cornered mountain lion, but our first response to a new creature is more likely to be curiosity, or amazement.
The next and best sighting of the day came about an hour
after the blue whale. Curtis noticed a small, slightly rounded fin sliding
back and forth in the water, and he glimpsed a sizable body ahead of the fin.
Not a marlin, then, whose spiny dorsal fin sits right behind its head. We
motored cautiously toward it and then drifted in neutral, hoping not to scare off
whatever the fin was attached to. A 12-foot long fish loomed into view right next
to Cilantro, dark gray with big white spots and a wide, blunt snout. Whale
shark! A first for both of us, and one of our most wanted creatures. This must
have been a young one, as our books give the length as 20–45 feet, with a
maximum of about 60. The world’s largest fish on the same day as the world’s largest mammal!
Double WOW.
The giant fish just hung in the water next to us, moving very
little except to dive under Cilantro’s keel as we drifted too close. Whale
sharks are filter feeders, sieving plankton, phytoplankton, krill, and other
small food bits through specialized membranes in their gills as they swim
slowly along. Maximum speed is 5 kilometers per hour. They hardly live up to
the name of “shark”!
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| Whale shark! World's largest fish. |
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| Whale shark next to Cilantro. |
With so much sea life on display, the prize for acrobatics
goes to the group of smoothtail mobula rays leaping wildly just outside our
destination of Bahía Agua Verde in the late afternoon. They are smaller than manta rays, with wingspans between 3 and 5 feet. Mobulas burst out of the water at a 45-degree angle and then slap back down on their white bellies with an audible smack. Sue thinks they look like flying overstuffed pillows. By the time we got close to them, the show had mostly stopped, but Curtis had managed to capture a few leaps with his ultra-zoom lens.
Again, we don’t know why they leap, but it’s very fun to watch.
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| Smoothtail mobula ray leaping near Bahia Agua Verde. |
Next post: Date Palms, Goats, and Abarrotes: Exploring Ashore at Bahía Agua Verde
