We spent the whole day at Adolfo Lopez Mateos port and town, a reputedly great place for whale watching. We boarded fiberglass boats called ‘pangas’ driven by local fishermen who are very knowledgeable about gray whale behavior. We explored the shores of Magdalena Island by panga, observing its amazing sand dunes, mangroves, and birds, both resident and migratory. We observed a mother gray whale with a young calf doing what they do in the bay. These moments were totally life changing.
1/21/2025
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National Geographic Venture
El Cardonal, Espiritu Santo Island
This morning National Geographic Venture anchored at El Cardonal, one of the many little bays along the protected western coast of Espiritu Santo Island. Espiritu Santo is one of our favorite islands in the Gulf of California for its beautiful pink-red-orange calc-alkaline ignimbrites, which are part of the Comondu Volcanic Field. We hiked and explored the land, discovering the combination of three magnificent ecosystems –mangroves, dunes with halophytic plants, and the desert vegetation. Many cardon, galloping, and organ pipe cactuses were seen by our interested guests and staff under sunny and breezy climatic conditions. A number of sea and land birds were also observed, as well as tracks of one of the endemic island mammals: the ring-tailed cat, the smallest member of the raccoon family. After lunch and a very interesting presentation about the origin of the Gulf of California, guests were invited to snorkel along the northern rocky shore of El Cardonal and to explore by Zodiac. This active day was finished and crowned by a multicolored sunset behind the peak of the impressive La Giganta Mountain Range, also built by volcanic ignimbrites.
