Baja, Mexico: La Paz (Day 6: 12/26, Friday, Part 1 of 3)

Dolphins, sea lions, puffer fish, and one (missed) whale shark.

We have a 7:15 pick up for our snorkel/kayak trip to Los Islotes, location of a sea lion colony--how do you distinguish between sea lions and seals? Well, funny you should ask! Sea lions are identifiable by their external ears.

Anyhoo, we arrive at the office, sign our lives away, are braceleted with hot pink paper stickers, and receive a meal ticket. We're told that the boat will be leaving shortly, so we should head upstairs and eat our complementary breakfast ASAP.

Eric and I seat ourselves in the patio overlooking the harbor and dine on what I think is something called entrefrijoles,



a sort of enchilada-looking dish with chorizo-filling and instead of a chili pepper sauce, refried beans ladled over the tortilla, all of it garnished with cheese and slices of avocado. Yerm.

I make a break for the bathroom and upon my return learn that I've missed a group of dolphins that just frolicked past. Fucksticks.

We spend the next eon waiting for the other passengers, all scuba divers, to bustle self-importantly--as if their experience diving and the fact that they own expensive equipment suddenly makes them brethren to Jacques Cousteau--to and fro with their gear. A younger German couple, the rest mostly retirees, and there's even a portly dude wearing an aloha shirt, the kind of guy that makes a lot of lame-o but well-meaning jokes and prone to affably sharing his bag of Jolly Ranchers.

Shortly after we set sail, another--the same?--school of dolphins.

I'm in raptures, of course, at the sight of them, and when they hear--I'm sure of it--when they hear our squeals of delight, they commence to patronize us with their presence, leaping, swimming in the wash on the port side. They look close enough to touch, fifteen feet of gray bottlenose muscle, and I hang over the guardrails in a frenzy, gasping when they turn on their sides to look at us, poor bipeds, one and all.



When the dolphins tire of us, they flick away so quickly it's hard to say they were ever there. We continue on to Los Islotes, the motor cranking away, and I begin to feel a little...perturbed. I'm leaning over the side of the boat and the sea is deeper, darker, and more secret. It's impenetrable. This doesn't look like the waters off Cancun where I had my first and only other snorkeling expedition. Am I supposed to get in that? Just jump into that? The driver/pilot/captain is edging us over swell after swell, the bow rocking into the air to what seems like forty-five degrees, then crashing down with a bump. Maybe I should've grabbed the wetsuit when it was offered.

I make a few sneaky queries to Eric--so like, the scuba divers, they just jump right in? It's pretty choppy here, isn't it? His replies are not wholly reassuring, but I ain't no bitch, so I restrain myself from a more explicit line of questioning, such as, "Do I have to do this?" and "What's lurking in that shit?" and "Are you people insane?"

When we reach the sea colony, I'm slightly encouraged; there are a half dozen other boats loaded with tourists and locals, groups large and small. The water is an exercise in green--moss green and forest green come to mind, though algae- and sea- are likely more apt. We're close enough to shore that the underwater boulders are a mere twenty feet below, and despite Eric's last minute admonishment that we are about to swim with "the favorite food of sharks" and that should I see the sea lions bolt suddenly away, it would be wise to "look around" (thanks!), I wedge my feet into the flippers, tighten my mask, clench my teeth around the snorkel, and scooch my butt off the slimy ledge of the stern.

A mouth and nose full of salt water. What the fuck? Is my gear malfunctioning?

The dive master, still bobbing at the water's surface, comes to my rescue. Gently, he tugs the mask over my nose--oooh--tucks strands of my hair back, then pulls the sticker, still attached to the left side of my mask, off. I'm an embarrassed preschooler getting my shoes tied, and I think I may have been so overwhelmed that I swim off without a thank you. Thanks, dive master man.