Camping with the Elephant Seals on Isla de Cedros, Baja California, Mexico
Halfway down the Baja Peninsula, off the Pacific coast, lies Cedros Island, the fourth-largest island in Mexico.
Early Spanish explorers named Cedros Island after the cedar trees (Monterey pines) found on its peaks. The island's high summits rise to nearly 4,000 feet. This rocky island is home to a unique community of endemic flora and fauna protected as part of the “Reserva de la Biósfera Islas del Pacifico de la Peninsula.” Recent discoveries have confirmed that nomadic fishing tribes inhabited the island for over 11,000 years, arriving by canoe.
In the 1980s, while researching my "Gringo’s Guide to Baja California," I made significant efforts to visit remote locations on the Baja Peninsula. The Island of Cedars is undoubtedly one of those remarkable places, located off the Pacific coast about midway down the Baja Peninsula. This seldom-visited destination was accessible through Isla Cedros Air Service from Ensenada.
We took a DC-3, a classic tail-dragger… great memories!
The idea for the trip began one day when I drove past Ensenada Airport and admired the iconic DC-3 planes with “Isla Cedros” painted on their tails. I pulled into the airport to photograph the aircraft and walked into the small office to inquire about tickets. Convenient flights were available a couple of days a week.
A few weeks later, we piled into the back of a classic DC-3 tail-dragger and flew out over the blue Pacific. One of our goals for this mini-expedition was to photograph the northern elephant seals found in the remote rookeries on the island.
Location::
Isla de Cedros, Baja California, Mexico
28.04413708063567, -115.19181981525274
The DC-3 Taildragger! This rugged aircraft served two purposes: transporting passengers and cargo to the island. The ground crew displayed incredible skill as they expertly reconfigured the plane's seats to ensure a balanced load of passengers, baggage, and freight for each flight. Shipments bound for the island often included food, hardware, and marine supplies for the fishermen and salt dock workers. On the return flight, they frequently removed as many seats as possible to make room for Lobster headed to Ensenada!
These images were captured in the 1980s using Kodachrome 25 film with a Nikon F3 and a Nikkor 80-200mm lens.
We boarded the DC-3 with a lot of luggage, including expedition duffel bags filled with our camping, cooking, and photography gear.
We aimed to photograph the remote Northern Elephant Seal rookery on Isla de Cedros. Our gear was loaded into a taxi and we headed to the marina. It didn’t take long to find a panga Captain willing to transport us towards the island's northern end. We acquired final food supplies at a small store in town, loaded the ice chest with cold beer, and headed north.
To our amazement, as we rounded a rocky point, we observed hundreds of elephant seals covering the beach in the next cove. Finding a spot to pull the panga to the beach was challenging, but our experienced Captain navigated us to the shore. We quickly unloaded and arranged our pickup for the next day. We opened our first beers and made a toast while waving adiós. When we turned around, we realized there wasn’t much of a camping spot available.
We pitched our tent above the beach, enjoying a beautiful view of this enormous colony of elephant seals!
Location::
Isla de Cedros, Baja California, Mexico
28.04413708063567, -115.19181981525274
We should have anticipated a few things when planning this photography expedition. The first was the noise—hundreds of boisterous elephant seals calling out all night; it seemed their party had no curfew. The second challenge was the smell; we set up our camp upwind from the crowded beach!
Arriving at the airport for our return flight, we were excited to discover that we would be flying on the newer DC-5, which featured tricycle landing gear. The ground crew was removing seats from the back of the plane to create space for more fresh seafood bound for Ensenada. With no one around to take our tickets, we decided to sit in the waiting room with the best view in the world!
Location:
Isla de Cedros, Baja California, Mexico
28.04413708063567, -115.19181981525274
Using the above location, you can find the Isla de Cedros Airport on Google Maps. There is a spot right at the edge of the runway marked “the Waiting Room.” We felt fortunate to have the opportunity to fly on these rugged old planes! Most of the other passengers were workers from the island returning to Ensenada.
Once the plane was loaded, the crew invited passengers to board; no cocktail service was available, not even a bag of peanuts! In just over an hour, we landed back in Ensenada. We didn’t take long to toss our bags into the back of the truck and head down to the seafood market for a cold beer and some ceviche!
Great story and photos.
What a cool story! And the photos are the bomb!