Day 2 - Isla Monserrat — Doug & Travis Are Going Places!

After breakfast, we have our first meeting with the Expedition Team to go over our options for activities for the afternoon (we’ll be cruising to Isla Monserrat during the morning and looking for wildlife as we go). The rest of the cruise, these meetings will happen in the afternoon before dinner. Today we have the option of a couple of different hikes, a skiff tour, and a snorkeling 101 class. We choose the beach meander (by far the easier of the two hikes). Afterwards, everyone on board gets fitted for wetsuits and snorkel equipment to use throughout the week.

Quite quickly there is word of a blue whale nearby and everyone’s out on deck to look. Sure enough, there is one traveling alongside the ship and it surfaces several times every 9-13 minutes. This time between sitings gives the crew plenty of time to share info on the blue whale:

They’re the largest animal ever known to live
The grow up to about 100ft long (our ship is 232 ft)
They live on a diet primarily of krill
There are believed to be between 10,000 - 25,000 of them currently, which is thought to be less than 10% of the population in the early 1900s
Adults typically weigh over 200,000lbs (in the northern hemisphere)

Various whale watching images:

After lunch, we board a skiff with Mike, our guide for the afternoon. Mike looks slightly like Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, and in fact has a Jack Sparrow Lego Mini-fig on his backpack. Mike takes us meanderthals to a beach on a bay called Bahîa de Loreto on Isla del Carmen. Our experience on Uncruise is that all the guides know their stuff, and Mike is no exception. He’s quickly finding items on the beach, explaining what they are, how they work, etc. We see sea stars, sand dollars, puffer fish skeletons, lots of different crabs, a molted crab shell. As we head inland, we learn about various vegetation (and sample some of it), spiders, cacti as well as details on the geological history of the island. It’s all very interesting and I think we both are happy with our selection for the day.

We make it back to the ship in time for afternoon cookies in the lounge. At 5:30, we gather for happy hour and discussion of our activities for tomorrow. We have our first “cocktail of the day” and quickly learn that our bartender is excellent. From our choices, we select a snorkel trip in the morning and an afternoon beach party for tomorrow. Happy hour also includes a nice assortment of food - perhaps to help build an appetite for dinner? After filling up on food and drink, it’s time for dinner.

All meals are open seating. Dinner usually offer three choices (seafood, vegetarian, some type of meat dish). We both often choose to do half portions of two different things as it all sounds great. Doug is surprised to discover some of his favorites over the week are the vegetarian options.

Each night after dinner, one of the guides does a presentation in the lounge about some topic. These are typically quite interesting and entertaining, AND they provide a good excuse to have an after-dinner drink! Tonight’s talk is about the Sea of Cortez (or Gulf of California) and the Baja California peninsula. Mike covered the geological history and how much that has impacted the landscape we’ll be seeing over the week.