Thursday, October 05, 2017

Diving in Loreto

Some photos from our first few days of diving in Loreto, Baja, Mexico. We've been coming here every couple of years for about 12 years. We like the small, quiet town. And we love diving with Rafael and the crew at Dolphin Dive. We're staying at Villas Santo Nino where we were greeted by this wonderful new mural:

beautiful new mural at Villas Santo Nino, Loreto, Baja

Heading out on the Dolphin Dive boat with Rafael:

going diving

I don't do enough underwater photography to get any good at it, but occasionally I get lucky and get a decent shot.

Baja's Sea of Cortez may not have the coral reefs of other dive sites, but it has a lot of other great sea life. This is not a very good photograph but it shows the multitude of fish. Jacques Cousteau called this area "the world's aquarium".

"the world's aquarium" - Jacques Couteau

This next one is one of my favorites from the last few days. It's a nudibranch (sea slug), I think Chromodoris marislae.

Nudibranch (Chromodoris marislae)

I like these little spotted boxfish. They can be shy so it's tricky to get a good shot.

Spotted boxfish

I love being able to view the details in the photographs, like this starfish.

starfish closeup

Or this Panamic fan worm that looks like feathers:

Panamic fan worm

Green moray eels are quite common. This one actually came closer when I was taking its picture, as if it was curious. Their eyes look like the buttons on stuffed toys.

green moray eel

The scorpionfish are well camouflaged (they're ambush predators). They look grumpy.

scorpionfish

It's always fun to visit the sea lions. The first day they ignored us under water, but the second visit they came down and interacted with us more. They don't breed here so they are not aggressive.

sea lions

Shelley & sea lion

sea lion

Although there aren't as many dolphins around as there used to be, we were lucky enough to see a good sized group of them on our second day of diving.

dolphins

dolphins

dolphins

Of course, there's plenty of life above the water as well, like these blue-footed boobies (famous from Galapagos)

Blue-footed boobies

This juvenile yellow-crowned night heron was under the dock.

Yellow-crowned night heron juvenile

Green and flowers in the desert, a result of recent rain.

flowers after rain

And, of course, reflections :-)

Brown pelican & reflections

See all 67 photos (sorry, too many!)

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