With an approaching storm, the city of La Paz offered the perfect protective anchorage and exploration point for today. The city, with just over a quarter million inhabitants, is one of the Baja’s largest and most vibrant cities with a rich history in fishing. Throughout the day, The Bay of La Paz and the malecon offered an exciting backdrop for guests as they met to discuss the conservaiton successes of places like Cabo Pulmo and what needs to be done to replicate this framework throughout the Sea of Cortez. After these productive meetings and presentatons, everyone got the chance to top off the day with one of La Paz’s gems – ice cream from the waterfront’s La Fuente.
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.
