Trying to get back into the groove after a few weeks of very fun traveling. About 36 hours after I returned from Oregon, I hopped into the car with Jesse Meik and Christian Cox (both of whom have graced the cyber pages of this blog previously) to head to Mexico. Mexico? you ask. Didn't you just go to Mexico in March? Yes, I did. But there is never too much time spent in Mexico, and that is especially true when it comes to fish tacos and finding rattlesnakes. So we
went back to Baja with both goals in mind, and returned victorious on one count. Boy were those fish tacos tasty! In contrast to our March expedition, this trip lacked both near-death experiences and the plethora of snakes we encountered last time. The former was a welcome change of pace, but the latter was somewhat puzzling. It was an unseasonably cold year for Baja, which made it quite comfortable for snake searching, but perhaps more difficult for snake finding. On our way out to the island, however, we had the good luck of stumbling upon a small pod of sperm whales. Yes, sperm whales! Just like the ones in the cartoons of your mind. It was very cool to see them unexpectedly, so when our snake hunting came up empty, Jesse suggested we ask Jose (the man with the boat) to take us into the shallow part of the Bay of LA where there are whale sharks. They are extremely impressive fish-- they are very shark-like in the back, very whale-like in the front, and very huge (weighing 20 tons on average, apparently the largest ever measured was ~40 ft. in length; the three we saw were about half that size). Here is a picture I took of one whale shark which totally does not do it justice, but gives you an idea of how cool it was to peer over the side of the boat and see something like this...
In the end, we ended up experiencing quite the aquatic safari and got to spend some time exploring the sand dunes (pictured below) and the mountainous central part of the peninsula (pictured above). All in all-- 7 days, 4000 miles, many habitats, delicious food, and lots of cool new species for me to see and learn about. Perhaps most extraordinarily, for most people this kind of trip is vacation, but for biologists it counts as work! Yet another reason to love this job....
went back to Baja with both goals in mind, and returned victorious on one count. Boy were those fish tacos tasty! In contrast to our March expedition, this trip lacked both near-death experiences and the plethora of snakes we encountered last time. The former was a welcome change of pace, but the latter was somewhat puzzling. It was an unseasonably cold year for Baja, which made it quite comfortable for snake searching, but perhaps more difficult for snake finding. On our way out to the island, however, we had the good luck of stumbling upon a small pod of sperm whales. Yes, sperm whales! Just like the ones in the cartoons of your mind. It was very cool to see them unexpectedly, so when our snake hunting came up empty, Jesse suggested we ask Jose (the man with the boat) to take us into the shallow part of the Bay of LA where there are whale sharks. They are extremely impressive fish-- they are very shark-like in the back, very whale-like in the front, and very huge (weighing 20 tons on average, apparently the largest ever measured was ~40 ft. in length; the three we saw were about half that size). Here is a picture I took of one whale shark which totally does not do it justice, but gives you an idea of how cool it was to peer over the side of the boat and see something like this...
In the end, we ended up experiencing quite the aquatic safari and got to spend some time exploring the sand dunes (pictured below) and the mountainous central part of the peninsula (pictured above). All in all-- 7 days, 4000 miles, many habitats, delicious food, and lots of cool new species for me to see and learn about. Perhaps most extraordinarily, for most people this kind of trip is vacation, but for biologists it counts as work! Yet another reason to love this job.... 
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