The Sea of Cortez, Tortillas and Friends

Saturday morning Rosey, Ernie, Jim, Geneva and I staggered out of our beds. The hotel band on the beach below us played music until 4:00am. Up until about midnight it was your basic hotel dance band music. Pleasant enough, even kind of fun. There was a break, and then around 1:00am, the music started back up but with a different configuration. Instead of a pop band, there was tuba and brass and percussion, some of it not very good. They would play the same two measures over and over again, and as the night wore on, they were less and less in tune.

The way the sound carries over water, Geneva thought at times someone was banging on the pipes in the house and doing plumbing work or thievery. That's how unmusical some of it was. But, we had our coffee and left the house at 7:30 to catch the Nature Tour Boat out of Gary's Dive Shop.

It seems I'm the only one that doesn't need or want to wear a hat or sunblock. I've never liked wearing hats. I'm fortunate to have skin that doesn't burn. I'm told I'm getting quite tan. Geneva wore her comfy tan hat.


Rosey wore her red sequence visor. I too have a red sequence visor somewhere at home, or in storage, or maybe I got rid of it... who knows. Although she can't swim, Rosey loves boats and for her, the longer the ride, the better!


This tour is the same one I took the first week I was here. The tour guide, Donna, is a walking encyclopedia about the wildlife, geology, faultlines and general knowledge about the Sea of Cortez. She is amazing. The San Andreas fault originates here, but because so much of the area here is on volcanic rock, the frequent small tremblers are seldom felt. Donna said we had two 4.0 earthquakes last month. The reason she knew is because she read it in the newspaper! haha A 6.9 earthquake here a few years ago - the size they just had in Haiti - was a yawn here in San Carlos.

I really recommend this tour for anyone who has an interest in this area. One of my all time favorite authors - John Steinbeck - wrote a nonfiction book titled the Sea of Cortez. I had asked my friends to bring a copy to keep down here and they obliged. It is about Steinbeck's journey with marine biologist Ed Ricketts as they studied and took samples in the Sea of Cortez for many months. The Sea of Cortez is an amazing, diverse and wildly unpredictable body of water. I know first hand now that the tides are irregular. It is 95 miles wide and 90 miles long, almost square. Beyond that, our little area right here in San Carlos is pivotal to the Sea of Cortez. The little estuary Frances and I visit almost daily is the breeding ground for approximately 500 species of sea, bird and plant life, all crucial to the survival of Ms. Cortez. It is generally believed that if the estuary dies or is over fished, then the entire Sea of Cortez will die. It is now protected by the State of Sonora.

We went on a smaller boat than they usually take out for this tour because as it turned out, the five of us were the only ones on the tour. So it was a private tour. Donna did not even have to use her microphone unless the boat was in full throttle. It was Great!!! Having been here now for seven weeks, I had lots of questions for Donna, which she invariably answered thoroughly and enthusiastically.

A few things I need to correct from previous blogs. There is no White Heron is this vicinity. They do exist but not here. The bird I thought to be a white heron is actually a Great Egret. We saw the small Snowy Egret on the tour as well. There are however, lots of Great Blue Herons, and today we saw two of them on one of their nests.


Blue Herons mate for life. They are not here all year round but come back here to breed. This year the male from one particularly large nest did not return. Presumably he has died. The female waited for many weeks for him but he never came. Very likely she will have a new hubby next fall.

Another correction I have to make is that the high tides and resulting kelp and garbage left on the beach after the earthquake Easter Sunday, had nothing to do with the earthquake. It was just a very high tide and we had no tsunami wave. As for the kelp, Donna pointed out that the water now has more of green tint to it than it did a few weeks ago. This means the water has reached the magical 72 degrees Fahrenheit, when the kelp begins to die and wash ashore. The kelp will continue to wash up in increasing quantity as the water heats into the 90s by summer, and the military comes in to clean up the beaches. Summer is not sounding like a good time to be here.

One final correction is that the tsunami wave that reached San Carlos after the earthquake in South America last month was NOT 18 inches high, it was 1.8" high. hahahaha

We saw the Blue Footed Bubis again, and I think you can see their brilliant Turquoise feet in my pictures this time.


And of course the pelicans. It think when I leave San Carlos in a few weeks, that the single thing I will miss the most will be the Pelicans.


At this moment as I type, I can hear Donna's amplified voice on the Nature Tour out at Bird Rock by our house, giving her fabulous talk on the Bubis and Blue Herons.

We all peppered Donna with questions nonstop. There is a large black bird which I've been watching for weeks that no one has been able to identify for me. They are large soaring birds and don't flap their wings much. The wings are very pointy and angular in shape. They look like some sort of evil animated aircraft or villianous bird. They have a thin black tail that is split like a fork, and long white beaks.

They are Frigates. To some extent they live up to their ominous physical appearance. Their wing span is about 8 feet and their body length up to 3 feet. They are sometimes referred to as a "Man 'O War." They acquire at least half of their food by stealing it from other birds, even if the other bird has partially swallowed his fish already. The other birds have the choice of either relinquishing their catch, or having their throat ripped out by the Frigate. It seemed that no sooner had we finished our discussion about Frigates when I spotted one chasing a Blue Footed Bubi. We witnessed an in flight war between the two birds. It was unclear who won. I hope to get a Frigate photo. They hover over the condominiums during the day near the estuary so hopefully I'll get some shots.

On most Nature Tour Boat rides, the dolphins usually find the boat once we near the estuary. They then swim along and play in the wake for awhile. Today they weren't appearing, but Donna was adamant we find them. We took the boat all the way to Miramar and saw a second smaller estuary. We came back and started to head back to the marina, but Donna turned the boat around one more time. She said the dolphins find us, we don't find them. Sure enough, there they were, not more than 10 feet from shore in front of the condominiums. Within moments we had an entire pod playing along with us for the next 10-15 minutes. We could have reached down and touched them, but we didn't of course.

Our tour went for three hours! They are normally only two. Between our group interest and questions, Donna's enthusiasm and her determination to see the dolphins, we got an extra hour ride. It was really great. Aftewards, Betsy met us at the Marina Terra Hotel where we had the buffet brunch.

Once home we all needed naps to make up for our lack of sleep from the Tuba Band the night before. We all attempted a sunset walk at the estuary but it was crowded, there were too many dogs that didn't along with each other, and some of us were just too pooped for the walk. We came home and called it an early night, in spite of another hotel band below, which happily, quit at midnight.

Sunday morning we continued our habit of rising around 6am. Back at home, Rosey works for the city of Ventura at a historic site called Olivas Adobe. It is a 19th century adobe ranch house. School children tour through it almost daily. As part of the tour, Rosey teaches the children how to make tortillas from scratch on the outdoor oven. This morning Rosey and Ernie made home made tortillas for us.


They brought their tortilla press with them and spent a couple of hours making piles of tortillas. What we didn't eat we can freeze. Yummy yummy! Geneva and I walked to the market at the bottom of the hill and got fixin's for my veggie-potato-egg scramble and around 11:00am we had brunch around the table.


In the afternoon we all sat down around the new TV in the loft and watched my DVD about the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, an organization of elder women with environmental concerns that I've been following recently.


The film generated quite a bit of discussion amoungst us all for an hour or so.


Then it was time for Jim and Ernie's 4:00pm Malt Beverage.


For our final evening out together, we went to Charley's Rock, an open air restaurant. There were six bar stools waiting for us right at the bar that looks out onto the water. A Sea Gull sat on the bar next to Jim, eyeing his drink. Before arriving, Geneva, Ernie, Jim and I had decided we would be courageous and order one octopus taco. We would split it between us, just so we each could say we'd had an octopus taco. After getting our gumption up, we were actually disappointed when we were told they were out of octopus. Well I never! How does one run out of Octopus. Well, I still have a couple of weeks to try one.


We came home and four of us played Scrabble. Jim won. He beat me by five points. Argh! In the morning we were treated to a beautiful 5:30am sunrise that included a silver sliver of a moon. Coffee was guzzled, the car was packed, and I waved goodbye to my good friends, Rosey, Ernie, Jim and Geneva! It was a blast!