Back in Punta Mita

I'm back in Punta Mita, after my stint with Uncruise on the Safari Voyager in the Sea of Cortez.  My pictures are in reverse order, so I guess I'll go backwards in time...

On the way over I had great Bioluminescence.  Its hard to photograph but you can see it here as the blue color.  The Red is the reflection from my instruments. 

I was using the Watt and Sea on the way over and it works great.  Its out of the water in this photo because it was sunny and the solar panels were doing enough work, but the hydrogenerator just makes power and the autopilot gobbles it up.  

Before I left it was a great moon

And after I worked on the Safari Voyager I went on a trip with a friend from work, and we went all over to find things that we had missed while at work, and to find new things.  We found a nice little hummingbird on a nest

Here is Aquila with Isla Santa Cruz in the background.  There are a lot of the same names for the Channel Islands of California here.

We went to Isla Santa Catalina, and it has a few cool things about it.  The island is very remote and so has a rattlesnake that doesn't have a rattle, but we didn't find one.  But also it has these barrel cactus that are big.  Really big.  8 ft tall sometimes.  

And beautiful minerals and rocks.  lots of cool limestone formations

Anothe shot of the barrel cactus

The Cardon cactus there were blooming.  They usually bloom at night, and bats pollinate them

Another barrel cactus

Yet another.

This is a cardon, but the heart of the cardon.  a funny growth

A view of where we anchored on the south end

A closer view of a cardon top

and more of the cardon flowers

As we arrived, we found a blue whale, and watched it for a while.  Eventually we abandoned ship and took the dinghy to watch the whale, and left Aquila alone and adrift.  

Here's the whale we found

Previous to this we went to Isla Santa Cruz and found a nice big sea cave on the east side.

With dolphins around that island

We also went to a spot on Isla San Jose and found a gigantic old cardon

And a slot canyon.

And a bunch of common dolphin

We also found a few humpback whales to play with.

It was a great trip and I feel great to be back "home" and surfing again.