The middle part of the Sea of Cortez is a place of high mountains, colorful geology and dramatic weather.
We saw banded purple mountains on an early morning run along the coast north of Los Gatos.
And pointy hills among them
This coast is full of pocket coves and one rare uncharted palm grove which we named “Palm City” in honor of the palms.
Further south we fell in with a pod of 30 pilot whales.
These whales hold a flow of laminar water across their face like a veil as the come up to breath. Its hard to tell where the water stops and the whale starts.
We anchored behind an uncharted spit on Isla San Jose and named it Cowry Spit in honor of the cowry shells we found there in abundance and their spit, a rare homeopathic ingredient and the origin of the ancient saying, “Rare as cowry spit”. It was also a place were the beach vultures roamed, too full of fish carrion to fly.
We looked out from the Middle Sea Drizzle Belt to the sunny north beyond a broken lighthouse.
The white speck across the channel is the sailboat Tao sailing out of the cleft-ridden Nopolo canyon in a blustery north wind. We soon followed.
There were hills of every color in the midday sun …
on both sides of the channel.
We crossed into the Southern Sea and made landfall among the chocolate bands of Isla Partida…
and watched the sun set on this voyage to the Middle Sea.