Watersports in Puerto Peñasco by Sharon Cruz

    Two of the most memorable watersports we took part in during our trip were kayaking and the boat trip. The day we went kayaking, just the drive alone up to the estuary was an adventure, our vans got stuck in the sand on the wrong road for a solid 20 minutes, but once we got to the right spot we headed out and began the tour. David from CEDO was our guide and he told us a lot about the importance of estuaries in the environment. We spent a while on the water under the hot sun, but it made swimming in the bay after the kayaking so much more enjoyable.

The day we went out on the boat to Bird Island was an early morning, we met the crew at the docks and headed out for a slow but steady three-hour ride to the island. When we finally arrived, we were greeted by hundreds of sea lions who seemed to never get tired of barking. Four of us were scuba diving while the rest were snorkeling and kayaking at the surface. Visibility was a struggle at the bottom, especially when sea lions are speedily swimming around, those would be the times where you would expect to have good visibility but there were no accidents with the sea lions, they were actually very playful and were even tugging at my fins. I was quite impressed with the amount of marine life that we were able to see at the bottom, never has it been so easy for me to find so many nudibranchs and starfishes without even trying. The really exciting part happened when we surfaced and were back on the boat, we heard someone in the crew say that a nearby boat had spotted a whale shark. We quickly geared up and jumped in the water straight towards it, the visible was by far the worst of the whole day, meaning I didn’t even see the whale shark until it was directly under me, barely more than arm's length away. Of course, I panicked a little and swam off to its side but once I was in the clear I just saw its enormous body swim directly across from me into the murky water. We were all in disbelief at least for a couple hours. After we did a second dive on the other side of the island, this one with a sandier bottom than the last, after this dive we surfaced for good and headed back to the dock. An amazing day overall. 

Sharon Cruz.





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