The first day of our exploration aboard the National Geographic Sea Bird started in the quiet waters of the Magdalena Coastal Lagoon, right in front of San Carlos town. Guests and naturalists disembarked and walked on the dunes of the long, sandy, wonderful, and 60-miles long barrier island called Magdalena. We observed a multitude of tracks form jackrabbits, coyotes, white-footed mice, hermit and ghost crabs, and found the marvelous dune plants clustered in green and red carpets all over the place. On the Pacific side, thousands of different shells were awaiting for us to enjoy and photographing them. Some of our guest met scallops, pen shells, fig snails, tivela clams, white Venus and other types of the amazing mollusks, whose antiquity as a group is about 500 million years. Later, a local navigation adviser named Sergio joined us to cruise northward along the narrow canal, and all aboard observed mangroves, and sea and shore birds under a light refreshing rain. As we crossed the nursery area of the gray whales, called La Florida, we started to see the first mothers and calves. At the end of the day in this ecosystem, our guests and staff landed in the little, fancy pier of Adolfo Lopez Mateos, and explored part of this little town.
2/25/2022
Read
National Geographic Venture
Port Lopez Mateos
This morning, National Geographic Venture docked at the interesting port, San Carlos. From the 1940s to the 1990s, the port was used for loading agricultural products and fertilizers from the nearby Santo Domingo Valley. Nowadays, San Carlos is basically a place for loading sardines from a local cannery. It is also an important tourist base for whale-watching, principally mating gray whales. At the port, all guests and staff boarded buses to Lopez Mateos, a town located near the northernmost tip of Magdalena Island. The buses traveled across Magdalena Plain, a section of the Sonoran Desert that receives a lot of moisture in the form of dense fog from the Pacific Ocean. Lichens and orchillas, a type of flowering plant, give the desert a phantasmagoric appearance. Guests and staff enjoyed spotting numerous birds, including crested caracaras and kestrels. Once in Lopez Mateos, we boarded local pangas for whale-watching. During two rounds of whale-watching, we encountered several whales close to our pangas. However, most of the whales were preoccupied with traveling, searching for mates, or just finishing their time of reproduction and thus exiting the lagoon. In reality, the whales were not interested in interacting with the boats and their excited cargo, but we had many opportunities to observe the behavior of these magnificent animals. In town, we all delighted in a delicious fish lunch, ‘pescado zarandeado.’ We enjoyed exploring the local dock with its many colorful shops and crafts, and we admired the wonderful sculpture of a cow-calf pair of gray whales.
