Our final full day on the cruise finds us moored near Isla Espiritu Santo when we wake up. There’s a lot going on today! After breakfast, Doug is squeezing into his snorkeling gear and transferring to a dive boat to go snorkel with sea lions. The group doing that goes a couple of miles in the dive boat and anchors near a rocky shoreline full of very noisy sea lions. Apparently about this time of day, most of the adult sea lions are resting up and the sea lion pups are playing in the water. Not a minute after we stop, one of the sea lions slides up to the swim platform on the back of the boat. He stays up there for quite a while taking selfies with everyone. After warnings about not approaching the bull sea lions (they were huge - there was no danger of Doug doing that!), we jump into the water and swim towards the shoreline. Almost immediately, the sea lion pups are all around us. They’re very inquisitive and a bit nippy. One of the guides likened them to puppies. Basically they try to grab anything that is loose at all. Several folks got nipped on arms and butts, but nothing that would do any damage. The pups really love to play and often charge right at you and then veer at the last minute. They also like to nip at each other. Doug got several really good videos of them. The group also ends up swimming through an archway in the rocks which is lined with great coral and lots of colorful fish. Everyone who did the sea lion snorkel seemed to really love it. On the ride back, Kelly (guide) did a prolonged demonstration of the blue footed booby mating dance which was hilarious. Doug also realized on the ride that there were 22 cold passengers who were suddenly going to be competing for spots in two hot tubs. He decided to get his wetsuit and other gear off before we got back to the ship. While a bit chilly on the ride, he was very happy to be sitting in a warm hot tub while the others were fighting to get their gear off.
While Doug’s been playing with sea lion pups, Travis has been doing a skiff tour around Isla Espiritu Santo. It’s a neat island with really odd geology going on. It’s got various different layers resulting from thousands of volcanos, some of which has eroded leaving wave like formations (called tuft) hanging off the cliffs. During their ride, they end up spotting a humpback whale near by. Somehow, they also spot the rare red Adidas shoe and are actually able to capture one. Travis is so excited by this sighting that he’s not able to steady his nerves for a clear photo. Despite that, we think you can see how special it was! There are also lots of bird sightings along the way. Those pelicans never stop eating!
After lunch, Travis heads off to watch the sea lions and Doug goes kayaking along much of the same route Travis saw in the morning. Travis gets to see more of the sea lions on shore but less of the pups under water. He’s in no danger of being mauled by an angry bull or nipped by a playful pup. He likely gets more detail about sea lions than the folks in the water did. He enjoys it and is happy with his much warmer choice. Meanwhile, Doug is kayaking around the bay where the ship is anchored. He gets paired up with Steve from Alaska. Steve worked with the park service for years and has clearly kayaked a lot. The group has Jeremy as a guide (he also did Travis’ skiff ride in the morning). We don’t see a humpback or any of the various rare shoe species found in the Seas of Cortez, but we do spot several rays and millions of small crabs. It’s a really nice ride for the first 75 minutes as we make our way along the coast to the far side of the bay. As we head back across the wide part of the bay, the wind picks up like crazy and we end up with a pretty tough 30 minute paddle into the wind as we cross. Everyone survives, but I think we’re all glad to get to the other side and sheltered from the wind. Doug was wearing his watch and was logging the exercise for the paddle, and feel he earned the cookies he ate when he got back on the ship!
Dinner this evening was the Captain’s Dinner. The only real difference is that the captain stops by and has all the staff who aren’t sleeping come down to the dining room and introduces them all. It’s always nice to see everyone who’s working behind the scenes to make everything go so smoothly for the passengers. Tonights meal is served family style and we end up having lobster and a tomahawk ribeye, which is delicious.
After dinner, Kelly presents a slide show of pictures the staff have taken throughout the week. It’s been her task this week to go through the 3500+ photos and narrow it down to about 400. They’ve done this on all the Uncruise trips we’ve been on, and they do a really good job of getting great shots of wildlife, making sure they have photos of everyone on board, and really providing a good summary of the week. They send links to the photos after you get home. There is a gallery of all their photos below, but we have used a few of them on previous pages when they captured something we didn’t.
Afterwards, we visit with folks a bit and then head to the room to pack. We’ll be heading via bus to the airport immediately after breakfast in the morning. We’re all heading back to a rapidly evolving situation with COVID 19 but will have had a great week to remember as we start isolating at home shortly after returning to Houston.
Today’s location
Selfie with the sea lion greater
Hello crazy eyes!
Nap Time!
Comfortable?
The archway we snorkeled through
The elusive red Adidas!
Our kayaking departure beach
Kayaking by some of the “tuft”
Jeremy describing the geology of the island
This area is called something like “Veiled Mannequins”
Just a few of the many, many crabs we saw today
Part of our Surf & Turf “Captain’s Dinner”
Part 1 of Uncruise photos
Part 2 of Uncruise photos
