Baja Trip
August 10th
Thursday, August 10
|
One of the first things I did in the morning was try to name everyone
in my head. I had to do it in clumps of names, in order of when they joined
our trip group: Columbia, Modesto, or Glendale. I'm not going to name
them all here, but I did really well when I tested myself by writing the
names down in my notebook. :-)
Here is a photo of the whiteboard where we learned what we would be doing
for each day. There usually weren't quite so many "personal"
notes on the board.
|
|
We had a two-boat day and had to divide into three groups. One of the
students, Don, drove for us.
|
First, we went out and found some whales. Well, we actually only saw
bits of whales. We would hear the sound of the blow (the whale blowing
out water to clear it's blow-hole) and then see just a bit of the whale
as it dove. Then we'd be off. chasing to where we'd seen the whale last
and then farther to try and guess where it would come up again. It seemed
like we were wrong each time about where the whale would come up and it
would be far away. Darn it.
|
|
Next, we snorkeled off the boat. We dropped from the boat into the water and
then when we were done, had to get back into the boat. Wasn't THAT a lovely
sight, my body being hauled back onto the boat! I saw at least 3 types of seastars
(but couldn't remember what they looked like once we were back at home base)
and lots of new fish. If we ever do this again, I am getting an underwater camera!
Later, I was able to identify a few of the fish that I saw: the panamic sergeant
major, the latin grunt, the adult king angel fish, and the scissor-tail damselfish.
I was getting a tiny bit better at remembering fish, but it sure helped that
lots of others saw the same fish and could remember things I'd forgotten.
Then, Guy took the other boat back to to shore so that Gregg and
the third group could come out and snorkel. Guy told us to go ahead and go out
farther with the boat and explore a bit and look for more whales. Those of us
who rode with Don this first day of his driving, decided he was a good luck
charm. With him driving our boat, we saw a couple of whales and in chasing the
whales, we were the first to find the dolphins.
Off in the distance, some of us saw a bunch of birds circling. We'd been told
that a lot of times the birds will be circling because there are dolphins below,
churning up the water and bringing a lot of small fish to the surface. So off
we went in search of dolphins, and sure enough, we found a large pod of common
dolphins feeding. Don took the boat right into the middle of the dolphins and
turned off the motor. We sat there for quite a while, watching the dolphins
leaping and swimming by. It was really quite exciting for us.
 |
Later, after we got back to the station and had lunch, it was siesta
time. Before today, people would continue to be pretty busy doing this
and that or going out into the water snorkeling some more. This day though,
people relaxed more and either read and/or studied up on whatever they
were going to present, or they actually napped.
|
|
Instead of studying (which I attempted to do and then got frustrated),
I wandered around taking pictures of the station. I forgot to go upstairs
though.
CourtYard |
Livingroom |
Kitchen
|
Dish Washing Area
Rinse And Wash Area
|
SuziFitz Beads
Copyright 2003 Sue Fitzwater
Created by Josh
Fitzwater
