Bahia Magdalena
Saturday, December 9, 2023
Bahia Magdalena and Sand Dollar Beach
Across the barrier island of Isla Magdalena is the ocean,
and between them is a series of sand dunes up to 40 feet high. We were offered four options: walks of three
levels of vigor, and a beach bum opportunity to just veg on the bay side beach. The hike to the ocean would take you to Sand
Dollar Beach, and the option with the intermediate level of difficulty would be
led by the photographer with teaching along the way. I chose that walk, and it was quite
tough. The distance was not great, the
climbs up and down the dunes were not all that high, but every step was in sand
of some depth, often 3-4 inches. We went
about two miles in all.
The dunes are impressive:
At some points there is vegetation, and the roots of the vegetation hold the sand and thus create small hills:
I liked this succulent, but violated the rule of having something in the photo which gives scale. That’s OK, I liked the picture better this way. It’s about 6 inches tall.
The wind makes wonderful patterns on the sands:
There have been indigenous people here over the millennia, the Cochimi, and they have left piles of shells (actually their garbage) which we did not walk on:
This succulent flower is about one inch across:
Finally we came to the magnificent Sand Dollar Beach:
There were many sand dollar shells on the beach:
Some had died recently and still had their teeth visible on the underside:
We hiked back across the island to the bay side, and returned to the ship where we had a surprise waiting. On the sun deck was a party, with sangria and music:
Then a late lunch, and we started off again. In the afternoon we had two lectures, one on
John Steinbeck who wrote “The Log from the Sea of Cortez” and the other on
mangroves and mangrove conservation.
Of note is that the Sea of Cortez has been renamed the Gulf of California by the Mexican government, wanting to get away from honoring European explorer/conquerors. Tonight, after dinner, will be a trivia contest. I doubt I’ll be in the running.
Great photos! What camera are you using?
ReplyDeleteThanks! It's a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS100. A pocket camera. I've mostly given up my really big camera and multiple lenses. This has a 25-250 Zoom, and a 20 megapixel sensor. It's all I need most of the time.
DeleteInteresting that Mexicans are now renaming things to avoid commemorating Spanish explorers (conquistadores)! I can sympathize with this impulse to some extent. Though I do wonder where such efforts should end, since many historical figures could be seen as good and bad depending on what aspects one emphasizes (George Washington, for example--I imagine Mexico has its own equivalents). I love that you told us the size of the flower in the cactus--helping me understand that I was seeing it more or less life-size on my screen. The photo with all the skinny succulents is fun, maybe in part because one doesn't know how big or small they are--and one can enjoy the taller one in front sort of lording it over the others. What I mean is, the photo creates other kinds of images in the viewer's mind, other than purely realistic, scientific ones. Photos can be fantastical, evocative, humoristic, puzzling.... But, yes, the general rule about having something that establishes scale is a good one. (I've read that, in Egypt in the 1800s), when photographers would put a native servant in the photo for scale (in front of a pyramid, say), the servant sometimes wouldn't understand what a camera was and was fearing for his life. (If this is true, are we perpetuating colonialism by continuing to show these photos....? Well, you don't have that moral problem, with photos of succulents!)
ReplyDelete