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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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  • When I was camping on one of the Los Candeleros islets, I was sharing it with three ravens. They were rolling and tumbling acrobatically in the updraughts that were whipping up the precipitous face of the island. I have developed a special affinity with that most ubiquitous, intelligent and successful of all birds over many years in Alaska, where their amazing repertoire of calls is an integral feature of the ancient forests. I have even learnt how to mimic some of their calls and capture their attention. After a few days cutting the ice with my fellow residents one of them started flying out to my kayak to seemingly greet me whenever I returned to the island; it would circle overhead whilst calling out and then escort me back to shore.<br />
After a couple of weeks of familiarisation my glossy black friend vanished. A few days later I landed on a nearby beach at Ensenada Blanca to visit an American living in the local fishing village. As I stepped ashore I noticed a raven flying demonstrably towards me. I replied to its raven calls and it flew overhead and did a few rolls as if it was showing off. The acknowledgement was plain to see, rather like a dog wagging its tail. Then it flew ahead of me and proceeded to harass and dislodge the turkey vultures that were perched in the trees. After each successful assault it called out and then proceeded to dislodge another vulture in the next tree; within seconds the sky was full of screeching, disgruntled vultures! It seemed as if the raven was clearly intoxicated with its own sense of bravado, and maybe it was even trying to impress me. When I arrived at the American’s house at the end of the beach I told him about the hilarious encounter with my shiny black friend and when he looked out of the doorway to see if the raven was still out there he looked at me, laughed, and informed me that it was waiting outside for me, and sure enough it was perched on a cactus just a few metres from the door!
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  • This photo clearly illustrates the contrasting morphology of different plants that are adapted to surviving in a harsh of arid environment like the Baja Peninsula; the thick, waxy, prickly epidermis of the cactus contrasting with the amber peeling bark of the torote Colorado tree ( F.Burseracea – Bursera microphylla ).
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  • The small island of Isla Catalina has the largest barrel cacti in the world and it is also home to the world’s only rattleless rattlesnake. I gorged myself on the succulent fruit of the barrel cactus that taste very much like kiwi fruit. The snorkelling around the island was excellent. There were some good places for fairly deep freediving that revealed many different species of fish.
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  • The effort to climb to the highest vantage points on the islands was well worth it for the stupendous views along the stark, dramatic coastline of the Baja Peninsula, although I quickly discovered how much caution was necessary to avoid being impaled or lacerated by the prickly vegetation. As a keen amateur botanists I was fascinated by the succulent and scrubby vegetation, so perfectly adapted to such an extreme environment with so little rainfall and almost constant desiccating saline sea breezes. There is a organ pipe cactus in the foreground and the amber flaking bark of a torote Colorado tree { F. Burseracea - Bursera microphylla ) can also be seen.
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  • Because of the permanently blue skies and maximum visibility the sense of scale and perspective were amazing. I only experienced clouds and rain on one day in the five months that I was there.
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  • I camped on one of the three Los Candeleros islets just to the south of Isla Danzante in the Bahia de Loreto National Park for three weeks on the way back to Loreto. From the top I had a clear view of the southern end of the channel between Isla Carmen and Isla Danzante, a passage frequently travelled by whales and dolphins. I was hoping for my first view of blue whales. I had only seen the second largest whales, fin whales, up to that point. When I wasn’t scanning the horizon for whales I was being hypnotised by the graceful magnificent frigate birds circling overhead in the thermals. They are the ultimate gliders among birds, able to hang in the for hours with harly a movement of their long, thin, angular wings. The shallow water around the islets was excellent for snorkelling although the water was much colder than I expected. It was wonderful to camping under the clear skies, with the stars so vivid because of the absence of light pollution from people. The temperature at night was perfect without any need for a sleeping bag or any protection from insects.
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  • I loved the almost anthropomorphic forms of some of the cacti. When you are so used to being around either coniferous or deciduous trees, it’s like being in a dreamland or wonderland with such alien plant forms, and of course many of the cacti are much much bigger than you would expect to find in your local garden centre.
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  • I loved the almost anthropomorphic forms of some of the cacti. When you are so used to being around either coniferous or deciduous trees, it’s like being in a botanical dreamland or wonderland with such alien plant forms, and of course many of the cacti are much much bigger than you would expect to find in your local garden centre.
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  • On my return journey from Isla Catalina to Isla Monserrat I had a very unexpected encounter. I was making great headway with a good following wind when suddenly a very tall tail fin appeared alongside me; my first thought was that it was the dorsal fin of a swordfish. I looked down into the water beneath me and its identity was immediately confirmed when I saw what looked like a giant checkerboard beneath me. Only one large sea creature has markings like that: it was a whale shark that had apparently come to the surface to investigate me. It wasn’t the right season for whale sharks so it was completely unexpected. As it was my first ever encounter with the largest fish in the ocean I implored it to swim with me for a while but it promptly dived out of view.
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  • After spending so much time under the full glare of the sun under permanently cloudy skies I became very brown. Fortunately my skin tans very quickly. When I was a young boy spending nearly every day at the beach during the summer holidays I became so dark that people were asking my parents if they had adopted me from India. Isla Monserrat and Isla Catalina were the farthest offshore islands that I paddled out to.
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  • I loved the almost anthropomorphic forms of some of the cacti. When you are so used to being around either coniferous or deciduous trees, it’s like being in a botanical dreamland or wonderland with such alien plant forms, and of course many of the cacti are much much bigger than you would expect to find in your local garden centre.
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  • My new American friend “Jose” came out on his small sailboat to join me on Isla Santa Catalina. Isla Carmen is visible in the distance.
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  • The town of Loreto is a regular staging post for commercial kayaking tour groups. I enjoyed mixing with some of them but farther down the coast I was I was shocked by the territorialism of some of the kayaking tour leaders. I encountered a dispute between two “rival” American tour groups that each laid claim to a nearby beach to camp on. The beautiful “unclaimed” beach that I gratefully accepted to camp on was evidently less desirable. The next day I stopped at an empty beach to stretch my legs when one of the groups that was involved in the dispute came into view and their leader paddled towards me. I greeted him politely as always and he promptly retorted by just asking me where I was heading. I told him that I was just heading south, to which he curtly replied, ‘I just wanted to let you know that we’ll be camping at the next beach, OK.” I didn’t take it as an invitation to join them for a campfire dinner or to share kayaking stories; I had no desire to detract from their wilderness experience or pollute their airspace with smoke from my campfire. The commercial kayaking groups don’t venture very far south of Loreto so it wasn’t long before I had left that bewildering attitude behind me and could embrace the infinite solitude that Baja had to offer.
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  • Giant barrel cacti (Ferrocactus diguetti) on Isla Santa Catalina, the Sea of Cortez and  Baja Penisnsula, Mexico.
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