Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Where the desert meets the water

In Cabo Pulmo the desert meets the Sea of Cortez and where the desert meets the water life is spectacular. Not only the wild life, the birds and bugs on land, but especially the under water life.
Changing with the seasons the diving changes; in winter we have 'cold' 70ยบ F water with low visibility from 20 to 40 feet, whales, big schools of cownose rays and thousands of mobulas (the flying mantas). The big eyed jacks are schooling and filling the water from the bottom to the surface, like stormy clouds. The yellow tail snapper are abundantly covering the reef under the shelter of their bigger brothers, the dog snapper.
In summer the water turns crystal clear and warm, showing off the reef, full of healthy and live coral. The reef is filled with grouper (1 in a thousand is a golden grouper and you can see on half a mile of reef between 6 to 12 golden ones!), several jew fish, the tiger shark and bull shark minding their own business. At least as spectacular are the schools of pork fish and burrito grunt, the muray eels swimming around even during day. The sardine track turns the water into a dense fish soup, killing visibility.
But it's not summer yet, we're in the transition. A few days ago we were surprised with the biggest of all, coming out of a cloud of jacks; a baby whale shark of about 20 feet. The first one this season and the anouncement of summer. The first one of 2009, but certainly not the last one; it's going to be a great summer for diving...

2 comments:

  1. An update: while I was writing the blog post, the divers were out with Pilu. After their return the happy faces reveiled good dives and after hearing them out it seemed to be spectacular dives: a whale shark of about 30 feet in El Cantil, a dive site close to the beach, depth around 45 feet AND a whale shark in El Bajo, about 10 minutes boatride further away at 50 feet. Yes, it's going to be a great summer...

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  2. Thanks for the post. Can't wait to get down there again. Looks like next summer might be the soonest available time though.

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