Baja

Osprey	Sunset	Short Hike on Isla Espiritu Santo. Cardon Cactus.	Short Hike on Isla Espiritu Santo	There are pelicans on the rocks that the kayakers are approaching
Looking West at Sunrise	Fellow photographers	Related to the Ocotillo. (Cochima cactus I think.)	"Creeping Devil" cactuses. These cactuses grow sideways instead of up	After lunch in the building shown. In Puerto Adolpho Lopez Mateos
Susan and local art work in Puerto Adolpho Lopez Mateos	Stop on drive back from Puerto Adolpho Lopez Mateos	On way to San Javier. Susan and tree with very determined root system.	Canyon in the mountains on the way to San Javier	Canyon with water at the bottom
To find water, look for palm trees?	Mission in San Javier, first permanent Spanish settlement in Baja established in 1697	Inside Mission	Outside Mission	Gnarly, dude!
Mission, Susan on short hike.	Flowers at a local ranch	Sunrise on a clear day	Gray Whale and calf	Thar she blows. These are a little hard to get because it occurs almost immediately when they surface and it is never clear where they are going to surface
Another blow.	Young Magnificant Frigate bird. He did not fly when approached but his neighbors did.	Pelican	Pelican and Double Crested Cormorant	Walking on water during take-off
Great Blue Heron	Great Blue Heron	Why is this Turkey Vulture hanging around with this Osprey?	Oh! the Osprey has something in his right talon that they want! They followed him...	Sunset
Manta ray jumping for joy. Meade binocular camera allowed me to get this...	Another joyous Manta ray. Meade binocular camera allowed me to get this...	Susan at the limit of my magnification. This area is where I swam with the Sea Lions. See the video section for underwater shots of the Sea Lions darting about.	Susan. This shows the distance a little better.	Susan arriving
Susan arriving	Susan arriving	Susan arriving	Susan arriving	One of the ship's engines
One of the engineering control panels.	Inside weaving shop in La Paz.	Outside weaving shop in La Paz.	Blue Lobsters from Australia in aquarium in La Paz	Fish in pool on aquarium grounds
Sunset	Susan at sunrise	Sunrise looking West toward Cabo San Lucas	Besieged... Locals heading out to sea with eager assistants.	Cactus Garden at Posada Real Hotel Los Cabos in San Jose del Cabo.

VIDEOS

One of my personal goals on this trip was to get better underwater shots of Sea Lion than I was able to get in the Galapagos. This goal was achieved! I decided to make movies instead of trying to take still images. My digital camera has a delay that often causes action shots to be missed. Video solves this problem although the frames are only 320x240 pixels instead of the high resolution you get with a still image. However, the video, in my opinion makes up for the deficiency because you get to see the action. I even now see things that I did not see while underwater with the Sea Lions, i.e., a couple of them showed me their teeth as they quickly passed by... Did not notice this while underwater...

Note that for the videos below, we ran into audio problems with the QuickTime viewer. Video was OK but audio was scrambled. Only three of the videos below have audio, the whale video, the dance video and the pinata video. If you are using the QuickTime plug-in in your browser, the audio will be scrambled. To play the video with decent audio, right-click the image, "Save Link Target as" and save the video file locally on your hard drive. Then use Windows Media Player to play the video file.

Click on one of the images below to cause the video to be played. (Typically brings upWindows Media Player to display the video on Windows 2000... May bring up some other viewer depending on what is on your system... Note above paragraph regarding QuickTime plug-in problem...)

Cochima Cactus blowing in the wind. (Small file. Only 600K)	Whale and baby whale. (5 Meg File)
Sea Lion action (Small file. Only 400K)	Sea Lion action. (1.7 Meg file)
Sea Lion action. (Small file. Only 614K)	Sea Lion action. (3.7 Meg file)
Bull Sea Lion checking me out... (2.5 Meg file)	Rambunctious! (10 Meg file)
Threat display? Trying to scare me? Happened so fast I didn't notice it until I looked frame-by-frame. Naturalists on board said they might sometimes try to scare us by showing their teeth. It all seems to be for fun though. The Sea Lions seem to really enjoy interacting with us. Otherwise, they would stay on the rocks? When the first boat went out to their location, they seemed overjoyed to see it and were bouncing around all over the place. Tried to climb the ladder into the boat! (Very small file. 234K)	Let's see it again SLOWER! (Very small file. 234K)
Another show of teeth! Again such a high-speed pass that I did not notice it while in the water. Later when I checked the video frame-by frame I found this... (Very small file. 82K)	Again, let's see it SLOWER! (Very small file. 82K)
Traditional Dance when we were in La Paz. (VERY LARGE file. 23 Meg)	Pinata in La Paz. (Large file. 7 Meg)

Baja - Sea of Cortez

January 14 - 21, 2006

VIDEOS