Kissed by a California Sea Lion in the Sea of Cortez

Sten reported that they started the trip off with a visit to Los Islotes and the resident population of California sea lion pups. The scuba divers let the sea lions chew on their fins, their wetsuits and one diver was even “kissed” on the mouth. The last dive of the day was on the wreck of the Fang Min – a Chinese fishing boat that was caught fishing illegally in Mexican waters, confiscated and then sunk as an artificial reef on November 17, 1999.

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Dust Storms and Forest Fires

Locals here in Ensenada are telling us that they have never seen such sustained and strong Santa Ana outflow winds. The good news is that the downtime gave us an extra 5 days to catch up on painting, varnishing, carpentry, welding repairs and such. The bad news is that winds blew up such a choking dust storm that it was impossible to get any painting done until the winds finally died down this morning.

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Giant manta ray migratory route

Highlights included a huge bait ball of skipjacks being hunted by silky sharks and 100-pound yellowfin tuna, a group of five hammerhead sharks that approached within 40 feet of the divers and a blue water drift dive looking for pelagics. All the usual Roca Partida critters were present, including over 30 white tip reef sharks, silky and Galapagos sharks and some curious wahoo.

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