Day Cruise on the Sea of Cortez

Today (27 April) a group of us hired the Awesome Cruiser to take us to Cerralvo Island which is north of Los Barriles near the city of La Paz. It is an uninhabited island and is 18 miles long and Mexico's ninth largest island. It is a considered a big fish game location and there is an abundance of Golden Grouper, Broadbill Swordfish, Marlin, Sailfish, and other game fish. We were hoping to find a lot of shells there but there were not as many as I had hoped but I did find some unusual ones. A friend I met here knows a lot about shells and she identified many of them for me! The island is also home to wild goat and although we did not see any, we did find some skulls and brought them back for a friend's husband!

We headed out at about 7.30 (very early for me). Some of the guys on the boat wanted to fish so they put out the lines on the way. A couple of Sierra were caught and we saw some kind of shark that the crew tried to catch. But we saw NO dolphins!

After a few hours on the island, we boarded the boat and went to find a place to snorkle. Wow! I had not snorkled in so long and the fish were amazing! I saw a Puffer fish which is the color of navy blue and it is kind of slow moving so I tried to catch it! There were a lot of small fish and one that I had never seen called a Parrot fish--absolutely beautiful! Blues, reds, greens! The visibility was pretty good too.

Finally we headed back and were enjoying the ride when we sighted a Marlin ! What a sight that is--he jumped at least 6 times out of the water. Of course, in went the fishing lines baited in hopes of catching that Marlin. A line was immediately hit but not by the Marlin but rather a 35 lb Dorado which is also a vibrantly colored fish and is excellent eating. It was about a 10 minute struggle to get the fish on board, gut it and cut it into filets ready to be cooked. It was pretty exciting for me because I had never seen any of these fish up close and REAL.

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