Isla Isabela, the Galapagos of the Sea of Cortez - by Adam

Today I am blogging about our visit to the island of Isla Isabela (Also called Isla Maria Isabelita) in the Sea of Cortez.

The island was put aside for researchers to study the birds called frigates and also blue footed boobies that nest there. Now the facility is abandoned and there is only a fishing village. 

The birds called frigates are majestic black birds with red pouches on the males’ necks to attract females by inflating it and hitting it with their beaks. The females have white feathers on their necks and the chicks are white once they get feathers. 

 

Frigates have a wingspan of 7.5 feet and only weigh 3 pounds! Can you believe that? It’s like stretching out my dad, yet he only weighs 3 lbs! Believe me, my dad is as tall as a pro basketball player! 

The birds were so calm we were in touching distance of their nests and chicks.

Now, the other bird I mentioned, the blue footed boobie, is another rare bird on the island that has, as the name suggests, blue feet. On the island is another bird called the brown boobie with green feet, only it is more common. The boobies have nests on the top of the island, only they live on the ground? Why don’t they live in the trees like frigates? I guess no one will know…

Before telling my story, I need to tell you about the last two types of creatures there are on the island, iguanas and lizards. The reptiles were every color of the rainbow, from white to black and small to large. The reptiles were not eating the lettuce we gave them and there were not any bugs on the island so we wonder what they eat and if they eat.

The animals would not even budge when we got near because they have no predators on the island and they have all they need. The island is called the "Galapagos of the Sea of Cortez" because of it.

Now I will describe our hike through the avocado forest and up the boobie hill. On the way over on the dinghy we saw some splashes in the water so we stopped. Then, we saw a huge, whale breach in the bay. 

Soon, after seeing one more breach we made it on land where we found sea-glass and weirdly colored barnacle shells. We asked a fisherman, who was going to the showers, where the trail started.  We immediately found out he could not speak English (and we don't understand Spanish), so we followed him to the research facility when he went into a ruined room to shower.

We had a book on the island and it was only a year old that said the place was used by researchers, but the place looked like it had been abandoned 20 years ago. After wandering for 30 minutes looking for the trail we found one that was not a dead end and followed it up the hill through the eye-level trees that the frigates nest in. At the top we stood up and whoa! All of a sudden we see a tornado of birds circling around us in a flurry of brown, white, blue and green. These were the boobies that live here. They did have blue feet for the blue footed boobies and green feet for brown boobies. They seemed uneasy so we tried to find the trail leading onward.


We hiked back down after we found that the trail was lined with nests and we didn't want to disturb the birds.  

  

On the way back we went to some volcanic tide pools with cool crabs.

My dad went to the other side of the bay to check out the islands caldera, it was full of water and very green!

After that we got back into the dinghy and went home. We spent the afternoon snorkeling around the caldera and saw several cool fish and even an Eagle Ray!

The next day we left saying goodbye to the birds. We think that a nesting pair might have made a nest on the Antipodes because two frigates followed the boat really far out. I still miss the Isla Isabella and its rare animals. I also miss everyone, San Diego and sometimes even the food! Bye!

You can see more details of the island on this web site:

http://10000birds.com/isla-isabel-mexicos-galapagos.htm 

Crossing the Sea

Having just completed our crossing of The Sea of Cortez, I wanted to give you all an idea of the experience that we had.  You may ask why this was any different than other parts of our journey, let me explain. 

Nancy, Adam and I have already traveled over a thousand miles in Antipodes from San Diego to La Paz Mexico over the past two months.  Most of these travels have been coast-wise, that is, we always saw land on one side of us or another.  In addition, we made the bulk of the journey with the FUBAR group, 40 other boats like ours travelling together with the support you would expect from such a large group.

This crossing was a bit different, first, we were doing this alone, no other boats joining us on the crossing.  The crossing was over 220 nautical miles which took us farther from land then we've ever been as well as in an area with much less support for us if a problem should arise.  Just to give you some reference to my hometown friends and family, crossing Lake Erie from Dunkirk to Bemus Point is 22 nautical miles, our trip was ten times in length, 31 hours to be exact.

Second, we were doing this crossing without the availability of our radar.  This expensive piece of equipment failed on us in La Paz and we have not replaced it as of yet.  This is due to the availability of replacement parts in Mexico plus the number of boat units* this will cost us ($5-6).  We plan on making a side trip in the summer back to the states to purchase a replacement and install on the boat.

Without radar we would not be able to “see” other small ships at sea overnight other than by their running lights.  Many small boat lights cannot be seen until you are very close, sometimes due to the size of the lights or the quality.  The big boats?  No problem, we have a system called Automated Identification System or AIS that displays the navigational information of these vessels.  My favorite piece of AIS information is called CPA or Closest Point of Approach. Basically, this tells us if we are going to be run over or not.

And lastly, this was the longest overnight that Nancy and I would have together, meaning we had to share 4 three hours shifts during the night to keep watch.  Tiring to say the least.

So, how did it go?

First, the weather was spectacular.  Greasy flat seas to start the trip, warm temps and calm winds.  This continued for the entire length of the trip.  Sunset and sunrise were both spectacular as see in the shots below.

 

The Sea of Cortez is known for the abundance of sea life and it did not disappoint, we saw many whales, including several breaching, manta rays jumping, dolphin in our wake and dozens of sea turtles.

     

We trolled for fish most of the way, it was slow on the Baja side but we started picking up fish as we got closer to Isla Isabella and this cumulated with Adam pulling in a beautiful 20 lb Dorado, his first. 

The fight was exciting with several acrobatic jumps by the fish as Adam brought him to the boat. Adam also caught a 15 lb Bonita Tuna that we released.  Our first meal at the island was fresh grilled Dorado tacos, nice!

The overnight was equally as enjoyable, we saw no boat traffic most of the night and the couple of cargo ships we did see were easily avoiding using our AIS system.  The night was dark with no moon meaning the stars were out in full force.  When was the last time you saw the Milky Way?  It was so pronounced.   But that wasn't the best thing about the night, the sea was full of small plankton that created bio-luminescence or sparks in the water.  Our bow and stern wakes looked like fireworks!  I tried to take pictures but couldn't get a good shot but what a beautiful sight.

Of course, the best sight of of all is one of land out the pilothouse window.  Land hoe!

So, after weeks of worrying, we made the trip without a hitch and got to Isla Isabella, or Mexico’s Galapagos islands.  Adam’s blog will cover this adventure.  For now, we venture onto the mainland of Mexico.

Until next time!

*Boat Units – An acronym for “Bust Out Another Thousand”, a common method of pricing boat equipment, for example, 4 boat units = $4,000.

El Serpentario de La Paz - by Adam

Hello! I am really sorry I couldn't post earlier due to circumstances that stopped me from going on the internet. This time we were on land going to a lizard museum called El Serpentario. The way over there wasn't fun, it was a long walk and we had to dodge around a few dogs.

Once we arrived I had a stomach ache, but inside we found a miniature lake filled with cute turtles with yellow stripes and red blotches on their faces behind a wall.

 

Next, we found multiple multi-colored iguanas that were at least two feet long and a snake-house full of rattlesnakes and some creepy yet cool tarantulas.

After, we found a rehabilitation center with ferocious birds of prey where Allie got to feed one with a thick leather glove on her hand. I was surprised when Allie gave it a gross piece of meat. I wasn't surprised about the birds eating meat, it was only because my sister in a vegetarian.

 Across the way from the birds was an alley where we went into a wire-mesh birdhouse and found a bunny that let us pet it. It's fur was like velvet! Then we found my favorite animal, the cunning fox! It kept gnawing on a chicken leg. In the back we found an angry-looking osprey and an alligator in a little pond. The alligator was submerged the whole time so we couldn't take any pictures.

 On the way out we saw more iguanas, chipmunks, a giant rust-colored tortoise and an owl. Man, what a day! 

      

I really miss all of my friends and if any of you are reading this, tell the rest and possibly comment back.