I was only thigh-high in the crystalline water off a secluded beach on Isla Coronado, but dozens of multi-striped fish called sergeant majors darted between my legs. These exotic-looking creatures are just a tiny fraction of the colorful ocean life that inhabits the waters surrounding this island in the Gulf of California.
The uninhabited patch of terrain, created by a volcano that last belched in 1539, is home to a few species of reptiles, colonies of sea lions and plenty of pelicans, gulls, terns and blue-footed boobies.
This visit to Isla Coronado was Day Two of a four-day visit to Loreto, a town of 16,000 about three-fourths the way down the east coast of the Baja Peninsula. Loreto’s main selling point: It is not a party town. It does, however, offer an authentic, small-Mexican-town experience, excellent cuisine, deep history, and perhaps its biggest assets — the neighboring waters and the islands not far offshore.
“We love tourists,” said Ivette Granados, Loreto resident, marine geologist and operations manager for the Loreto Region of the Baja California Sur Tourism Board, “but we want them to understand the efforts that this community is doing to evolve to be a very conscious town (that) preserves, protects and shares what we have.”
The preserving and protecting began in 1996 with the creation of the Loreto Bay National Marine Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that covers 800 square miles. It includes Isla Coronado and four other islands — one of which is designated only for scientific research. Fishing is not allowed in certain areas of the park, and where it is, the limit is one. After that, it’s catch-and-release.
Two days within the park proved that the townspeople had made the right decision.
Our first day in the park took us to Isla Coronado via a small, shaded boat that motored out of Loreto. As the cruise unfolded, we viewed a coastline dominated by the dramatic, jagged mountains called Sierra de la Giganta, created by eons of earthquakes, tectonic shifting and volcanic eruptions. The mountains’ sharp, rocky silhouette, accentuated by a cloudless sky, cleverly camouflaged areas of tropical growth, waterfalls and teeming biodiversity, looked as if it had been cut out by a giant pair of scissors.
From Isla Coronado’s pristine, half-moon-shaped beach, we saw only a dozen or so other humans — a rarity in a world where tourist-heavy destinations like Venice, Barcelona, Hawaii and Machu Picchu actively discourage the hordes of visitors because of their negative impact on local life and the environment.
On our second day in the park, we moved through the transparent waters via the Oloyumi (Eys of the Sea), owned by Luxury Baja Sailing.The 12-passenger catamaran docks at Marina Puerto Escondido, a private, modern, naturally protected harbor about 30 minutes south of Loreto. Puerto Escondido berths high-end sailboats and multimillion-dollar yachts.
Skipper Jorge Ortiz and first mates Alberto Morales (from Chula Vista) and Sergio Romero (a wizard with grilled chicken, fruits and vegetables) took charge of boat and passengers. The crew knows these waters intimately, and after weaving along the otherworldly coastline, we anchored off the coast of Isla Danzante for lunch and snorkeling.
Jacques Cousteau once called this area the “Aquarium of the World” because of the concentration and diversity of marine life in the park. We saw some of it without even getting into the teal water, but those who went over the side of the Oloyumi with snorkeling gear had some unforgettable close encounters.
Our second day in the marine park was capped off with Sergio’s melt-in-your-mouth grilled chicken (ingredients included pineapple, strawberry jam, vinegar, ketchup and habanero sauce) and a dozen-dolphin escort as we headed home. The dolphins raced alongside the Oloyumi, soaring and diving into the water, which mirrored just the way I felt after a both tranquil and exciting day in the Loreto National Marine Park.
For more discussion and photos, visit www.facebook.com/elouise.ondash or Instagram @elouiseondash.
