Contributing to the continued joy of everyone aboard the National Geographic Sea Bird, a beautiful red-pink-orange-magenta-and-yellow colored sky welcomed us while navigating south of San Francisco Island (our anchorage last night). Without hesitation our photographers and their cameras worked hard at capturing the uniqueness of this natural palette arranged by nature and produced by the light of the rising sun. The Gulf of California is known, among other things, for the beauty of its scenery and this morning was no exception. The gorgeous light of the sunrise also swept the high and rugged peaks and stratified walls of the La Giganta Range, the magnificent volcanic mountains that characterizes the southern half of the peninsula. They were topped this morning with a dense layer of low clouds and fog. A little breeze brought us a bit of rain and, consequently, a rainbow that looked like a long high-lying wound in the heavens. In the distance, on the quiet, dark ocean we discovered some little blows that indicated the presence of small marine mammals—dolphins, scattered seabirds glided or flew in different directions.
Today cetaceans were elusive and their blows disappeared as fast as they were produced because of the slightly strong wind. Instead, the marine birds were more cooperative, and brown pelicans, yellow footed gulls, black and least petrels, Cravieri’s murrelets, black-vented shearwaters, and the rarely- seen Pomarine jaeger were observed as the morning progressed. Later on, everybody on the ship partook in a delicious and abundant lunch to recharge our batteries.
In the afternoon we made our last anchorage of the voyage at Bahia Bonanza, a greenish shallow bay with a long and pretty beach with whitish sand at the southeastern tip of the Espiritu Santo archipelago. Most of us preferred a last hike through the fascinating Sonoran Desert environment, observing its great biological diversity and beauty. Those with good luck were able to see the endemic jewel of the island, the so-called black jackrabbit, on the run. We started to return to the ship to process tons of good photos that were taken during the week and selected those which would speak by themselves about our trip. We finally said goodbye to the amazing Gulf of California.
