Mike in the Wild

Round trip cruises out of California often include a stop in Ensenada, Mexico.   While it's an interesting port of call, situated around sixty miles south of Tijuana and the United States border, it's mostly visited because of the Jones Act.  This federal statute is technically the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 that, among other things, dictates that all transport between U.S. ports be done on U.S.-built ships.   Since there is no longer a competitive American industry supporting the construction of modern cruise ships, cruise lines are forced to use mostly European-built ships.  To bypass the Jones Act and keep within the law, their various round-trip Los Angeles itineraries, for example, stop in Ensenada to make this trip an international voyage instead of a domestic one. Nonetheless, new ports of call are always an adventure with new sights and sounds, and in that respect Ensenada doesn't disappoint.  I'll leave the sightseeing and shopping tips t...

Santa Catalina Island might be the most famous of the Channel Islands, an archipelago that lies around thirty miles off the coast of Southern California.   Its only incorporated city is Avalon, where the vast majority of the island's 4,000 residents live.  Most of the rest of the island is primitive and undeveloped, an untouched 75 square mile landscape protected by the Catalina Island Conservancy.  A number of endemic species (i.e. found nowhere else in the world), like the Catalina Island fox, benefit from this management. But for the first-time visitor like me, Avalon and its surrounding hills, canyons and coastline might be the only wildlife habitat explored on Catalina.   Shorebirds, especially gulls, thrive in the crowded seaport.  Mockingbirds and warblers populate many of the non-native  trees in town.  The sea just beyond any beach seems to teem with kelp and fish, a wonderland for exploring snorkelers and divers.   And a...

A voyage on a big cruise ship offers lots of activities like dining, dancing, drinking and birding.  "Birding?  Really?" you might ask.  Well, yes.  Even on their longest voyages, most recreational cruises sail within several miles of shore, so they're never far from common shorebirds like gulls and pelicans.  In addition their exotic ports of call are always home to at least a few new and unfamiliar species for the bird enthusiast.   And a short time at sea affords the rare opportunity to encounter seabirds like petrels and boobies that live and hunt mostly over open ocean, unless they're breeding. Last year this desert dweller was fortunate to spend some time aboard the Ruby Princess as she sailed from California into the Sea of Cortez (known in Mexico as the Gulf of California) and back.  Enjoy the following pictures of several sea-loving birds, many of which were captured from the ship's decks as countless passengers dined and danced, mostly...