We managed to make a late morning start 10:00 AM this time. The water was clear and the bottom sandy with billions of little holes in it. Penny believes the holes in the sand are made by glass shrimp. The water was so clear that we could see down to the sandy bottom as we paddled down the shore. In less than two meters of water I managed to catch a picture of a stingray for Maryly.
The shores of Bahia San Rafael are not as dramatic as many that we have passed. There were long beaches interspersed with short crumbly cliffs. We stopped for lunch at a little sandy beach in a cove where we could try and hide from the sun in the meager shade of the cliff. Wandering around after lunch we found huge fossil beds of shells. In one place the fossils were made out of large thin scallop shells.
Almost every day we caught sight of gray whales going by offshore. On this day we saw the grays closer to shore and Don paddled out to get closer to them. He got so close that one blew next to him and he discovered that they have very bad breath! I paddled out to where the whale had disappeared after one dive and looked down into the water. I didn’t see the whale but I was surprised to be able to make out some details of the bottom! The whale had been swimming and diving in water that could not have been more than 20 or 30 meters deep.
We found a beach next to a tall bluff to land at for the evening campground. As we landed several dolphins came by close to shore. Joe and I scrambled into our wetsuits to try and go swimming with them, but they moved on before we were ready. Then just before sunset a pod of dolphins came back and zoomed up and down the shore only a few meters away. One dolphin would swim by close to shore while several others would hang back a few meters farther out. We guess that the one close to shore was scaring fish out of the shallows for the dolphins farther out to catch. The water was so shallow that when they took off in pursuit of something they plowed up quite a wake of water.
Later we saw the dolphins jumping offshore in the water stained by the colors of sunset. Penny asked again “Are we to the boring part yet”?