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Today is the start of our grand finale of the Baja Season. Our 14 day photo trip is wildly popular and talked about with guests come out from all around the world. In essence, it’s a two week exploration of everything that is cool about Baja California. We will see dunes, mangroves and Grey Whales on the Pacific side for a couple of days, then make our way down and around to the Sea of Cortez. From there we head as far north as we can get. This is one of the few trips we do that we get up to Isla Rasa which is a migration spot for the Tern and Isla San Estaban where Sperm Whales have been known to hang out.

Since there are four published National Geographic photographers on board, the whole emphasis of this trip is about getting “the shot”. There is already a pretty big feeling around the ship, that stress that one feels to perform well when around others of equal or better caliber. It’s kind of nice to see it from a side view, and gain some perspective from it. Everyone on this trip has some very nice photo gear, so I suspect that there will be some great pictures coming out of the mix. I’ll have to try and sneak a few of mine in, and see what happens!

We are here in San Carlos for the last time of the season, and it is VERY windy. So windy in fact that it’s pretty much shot down all of our big plans for this trip. We were supposed to head up the coast to the San Ignacio lagoon for some grey whales, but a 30 knot head wind is making the swells a bit too big for us. Punishing paying guests with rough seas is not such a great deal for any one. So we will hide out here in Mag Bay for a couple of days, then try and ride the surf back down to Cabo. It will probably end up being just as good this way.

I actually made it into town today, the first time in a month. San Carlos is a funny little town, barely struggling along and aging gracefully. There’s not a whole lot of money here, most of the people work at the power plant the lights up everything for a 100 miles. The town looks just about the same as it was last year, though a very little bit of clean up and new construction has happened since the hurricane rolled through a couple years ago.

The fishing does appear to be picking up again. Vessels have been coming in while we are at the dock and dropping off loads of this and that. It pales in comparison to the places we go in south east Alaska, but it is still good to see. A few years back the fisherman fished out the seas around the whole peninsula. Now they are getting a good lesson in just why sustainable practices are so important. There will be a new generation that come along now and take this into account. I wish them luck.

People in San Carlos are always nice, though they are not very used to Gringos. Tourism here is pretty slow, since the town is pretty far dislocated from the major cities on the peninsula. Highway 1 misses San Carlos by a good 60 kilometers, and many travelers never even come close. La Paz is around a three hour drive, and it can be a daunting one. There are switchbacks that come out of nowhere, and free ranging cattle usually hiding out at random spots along the way as well.

I went ashore for a bit on Magdelena Island and managed to snap some pretty good pics of the sand dunes out there. It was pretty windy, so I had to be very careful of the sand blowing into my camera!

He was a playful thing. Kind of wanted to check us out. Didn’t want anything to do with being touched, though.

Maybe next week!

We came across these couple of playful humpbacks the other day. I ended up with some pretty good pics of them.

I’ve been so very busy with work, I’m hoping that it levels out here soon! There’s not enough time in the day, I’ll tell ya.

Santa Rosalia is a nice little mining town on the main highway south into Baja. It’s around 2/3′s of the way down the peninsula and there isn’t a whole lot going on. The nice thing about it, is that there isn’t the glitz and glamour like Cabo.

I’d rate it as a nice place to make a pit stop on a road trip, but not a whole lot more.

We had a day at the dock in Puerto Escondido yesterday. The usual routine is that we stop in here in the middle of the night to pick up some water and drop off some trash, but this go around we got to hang out for a few hours in the daytime. It’s just south of the town of Loreto, and it’s their technical port of entry. Really it’s a dock in the middle of no where, but that seems a little harsh since it’s in the middle of some beautiful country.

There’s not a whole lot to do here, but look around at the beauty. That’s alright with me…..

The Cabo marina was the slowest that I have seen in my travels here. The talk of the town is just how slow tourism has been. It’s such a cool place, with tons to do and see. Like I’ve said before, it makes me sad that it’s not booming like it once was.

Go to Cabo!

I got over to the beach for a little bit last night, with the hopes of getting some good time lapse footage. The new intervalometer works well, I am really enjoying using it. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some time here soon to put together a little video using the stills. It an interesting concept, very fun to play with. I’ve been talking to our Video Chronicler on board about it and he’s been giving me some pretty good tips. Especially good tips about shooting stars and nightscapes that I’ll put into motion when I get off the boat here in a couple of weeks.

The weather has been pretty rough lately, very un-Baja. There has been very little sun shining and it’s been pretty windy. I think that we had a grand total of two guests want to go snorkeling yesterday, which is VERY strange. The only comforting thing about it is I know further north folks must be into some very cold and wet weather. If it’s like this down here, it must be pretty good up north!

We found a couple of the largest mammals on the earth yesterday. I didn’t get the prestigious fluke shot, but it sure was cool to see them anyways. It’s really humbling to see an animal moving along side that is so huge. We don’t get to see these very often, so we got a special treat!