Looking for Whales

Jacques Cousteau called the Sea of Cortés the “the aquarium of the world” (link), and you know it has to be a helluva big tank to hold 6,000 animal species – 4,854 invertebrates, 891 fishes, 181 birds, 36 mammals and seven reptiles (Brusca et al. 2005). We could discuss the “health” of the Sea of Cortés – the lack of freshwater flow and nutrients from the Colorado River; habitat destruction and bycatch by commercial shrimping; overfishing of sharks and groupers; over-harvesting of pearl oysters, sea turtles and whales; population crashes of the totuava (link) and vaquita (the world’s smallest and most endangered cetacean) and more (link, link). Maybe when I feel sufficiently misanthropic about the future of the “world’s aquarium,” I’ll depress you with some of those stories. For now I’d like to celebrate the remaining diversity in a diminishing sea.

Ron photographing humpback whale (Isla Danzante on the right)

San Cosme

Parque Nacional Bahía de Loreto is the largest marine park (800 square miles) on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Park regulations prohibit spearfishing (except for subsistence by Mexicans), so I was looking places to launch my kayak outside the park. I plotted the park’s boundaries in Google Earth (they’re not shown on local maps) and looked for access roads. The first good access to the Sea of Cortés south of the park was San Cosme, 26 miles from Loreto. The 13-mile road from the Transpeninsular Highway to San Cosme reminded me of the road to Caleta Agua Armargosa in Gene Kira's King of the Moon: A Novel About Baja California:

…men fought their way from the main road in the west, over the high mountains, and down the very cliffs themselves, to the floor of the canyon. It was not a legitimate road they cut, but more of a plunging, twisting trail clinging to the sides of the cliffs. Is was so narrow in places one could not get out of a pickup, for on one side the door would be stopped by the face of the cliff, while on the other, it would open over noting but air.

Feral burros along the road to San Cosme

Cockfights in Loreto

I went to the cockfights in Loreto with Mark, a retired fireman from Anchorage. He was meeting Andrés, a friend and “roosterman” who was not fighting, but promised to show Mark around. Andrés said that he had 40-50 fighting roosters. He wasn't fighting because it was a championship and the biggest fight of the year in Loreto. Some of the teams were local and some roostermen brought birds from as far away as Constitución. There would be 100 fights and each team (a ranch or trainer) entered four birds. The fights began at 3 PM and would run until 3-4 AM the next morning. The top three teams would collect the prize money.

Warning: cockfighting is a blood sport; this post describes and has pictures of violence to animals.

Damselfish: Danger (and Sex) on the Reef

I was up before sunrise to go diving in Parque Nacional de Bahía Loreto (link). Driving south from Nopolo on Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway, I stopped at the Mirador (viewpoint) above the village of El Juncalito to check sea conditions. The winds were light from the north and the Sea of Cortés was calm. I turned off the highway where it turns inland and begins to climb. The dirt road to Ensenada Blanca drops down into an arroyo that drains a large canyon stirring up a cloud of dust. I wondered what the arroyo was like during a flash flood. 

Sunrise over Isla del Carmen from the Mirador above El Juncalito