It may be hard to tell from the photos, but we’ve been doing more down here than snorkeling, fishing, feasting, and taking long walks on the beach. Yes, there’s been plenty of all that, but that’s not the entirety.

 

Katie and I are both geeks. She is a trained geek with a Master’s degree in marine geekology, and I’m a self taught geek, with an interest in all facets of ecology. We are naturalists at heart, and the desert and the sea have captivated us. We can’t help but take notes on the life that surrounds us. Selkie’s shelves are filled with plant books, bird books, marine invertebrate books, any guides that can help us to understand the life in this incredible place.

 

Each day, we lie to Wylie and tell him that we’re going to hike through the desert for his sake, but I’m sure he sees through our thin veil. If a bird chirps, we stop. If we see a new plant, we stop. If we find a new shell, we stop. Our packs are loaded down with field guides, our necks with binoculars, so we move slow. He is pretty much on his own in providing for his daily exercise, which seems to be okay with. I’m not sure if he’s retaining it, but we’re also teaching Wylie his birds. Common name only though, no Latin.

Before our trip is done, we should walk away knowing quite a bit about the reef fishes, the plant communities, the birds, the intertidal critters, and every other little bit of life we stumble across. We will know not just the names of the species, but hopefully how they relate to each other and to this bizarre and challenging physical environment that they live in. And, we hope to see every bird in Baja.

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