Saturday, January 26, 2008

La Paz, Baja California Sur

Welcome Aboard

Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic welcome you to Baja California. Captain David Sinclair and his crew, along with the Expedition Team welcome you to the National Geographic Sea Lion. We look forward to spending the next week together, exploring this unspoiled corner of Mexico, and sharing our passion for this magnificent region with you. Our journey will cover more than 500 nautical miles, beginning in La Paz, the capital city of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. We’ll begin our voyage by exploring some of the Gulf islands that are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site established in 2005. Here, you’ll see the richness of both the Sonoran desert ecosystem, and one of the most productive seas on the planet. Mid-way through our voyage, we’ll round the famous cape at the tip of the Baja California peninsula, and sail north to Magdalena Bay, the southernmost gray whale breeding lagoon on the Pacific side of the peninsula. Here we’ll walk the stark dunes of Isla Magdalena, and take our Zodiacs out seeking gray whale mothers and calves.

Once you’ve had an opportunity to locate your cabin, please join us in the lounge for drinks, appetizers and a chance to meet your shipmates.

General embarkation

Introduction to ship’s officers & Expedition Staff

1930: Dinner is served

Sunset: 1803

“How does one organize an expedition: what equipment is taken, what sources read; what are the little dangers and the large ones? … Your expedition will be enclosed in the physical framework of start, direction, ports of call and return. These you can forecast with some accuracy; and in the better-known parts of the world it is possible to a degree to know what the weather will be in a given season, how high and low the tides, and the hours of their occurrence. One can know within reason what kind of boat to take, how much food will be necessary for a given crew for a given time, what medicines are usually needed – all this subject to accident, of course.”

– John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea Of Cortez