Just Take the Tacos - Baja V 2016

“…Let us go,” we said, “into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever a part of it; that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel-grass, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool, make us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too.”

-John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez

The first day of our journey to Baja, Mexico was extremely intimidating. At lunch we were given orders to just take the tacos as they were ready, but what if we weren’t ready to take the tacos and embark on this expedition? It didn’t matter, if life gives you tacos… you take them and just enjoy. I am a marine biologist and mother of two; this last summer I started my newest adventure as a graduate student in the Global Field Program at Miami University, Oxford Ohio.

Sweat and tears just about sums up the first few days in the Baja: Field Methods Earth Expedition. I cried on one the first days of class during “Group Chicken” in front of a bunch of people I didn’t know, not because I was sad or missed my kids, but because I felt that I was in the right place. A few days later we jumped into the Sea of Cortez to rinse off for the first time since we left San Diego, CA. Feeling refreshed, I was reassured that I am in the right place, at the right time, with the right people, a wonderful group of students ready to make the world a better place.

“Trying to remember the Gulf is like trying to re-create a dream. This is by no means a sentimental thing, it has little to do with beauty or even conscious liking. But the Gulf does draw one…. If it were lush and rich, one could understand the pull, but it is fierce and hostile and sullen. The stone mountains pile up to the sky and there is little fresh water. But we know we must go back if we live, and we don’t know why.”

-John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez

Ranch life, sleeping outside, and not having access to running water are all things that normally would put me out of my comfort zone. Staying at Rancho San Gregorio and listening to stories from Rafael, the local ethnobotanist was incredibly inspiring. Hiking in the desert was like walking in a Dr. Seuss book. The plant life looked familiar, but also like something I have never seen before in my life. The desert was full of life and medicines, not desolate and barren as I had expected. Walking through the endemic plant life, getting attacked by Cholla Cactus, and swimming with marine life temporarily satisfied my wanderlust. Everything was so unique and diverse.

“It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again.”

-John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez

The days alternated with scientific inquiry and spiritual moments, connecting us with nature. I trekked through the desert in the rain, swam with sea lions and whale sharks, and drank some of the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life. I was feet away from a pod of pilot whales (more crying). I saw my spirit animal, an octopus, while night tide pooling and sharing my knowledge of marine life. I fell asleep under the Milky Way to the moon rising in the desert and then woke to the sound of waves crashing by the sea. So when the song “Home” by Phillip Phillips played, as we took in our last views of the Vermillion Sea, of course we teared up and laughed… and were still sweaty. I had nine amazing days of adventure, learning about myself, learning about the incredible people I was with, and I hope to find my way the Sea of Cortez again someday.

We came, we swam, we conquered and were inspired by the majesty of Bahía de Los Ángeles.

“The moment or hour of leave-taking is one of the pleasantest times in human experience, for it has in it a warm sadness without loss. People who don’t ordinarily like you very well are overcome with affection at leave-taking. We said good-bye again and again and still could not bring ourselves to cast off the lines and start the engines. It would be good to live in a perpetual state of leave-taking, never to go nor to stay, but to remain suspended in that golden emotion of love and longing; to be missed without being gone; to be loved without satiety. How beautiful one is and how desirable; for in a few moments one will have ceased to exist!”

-John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez