Last week we got to talking about how there seems to be less wildlife in the Sea of Cortez than we recall from the olden days.

Literally a few minutes after this comment we saw the visitor above giving a blow. He (we assume this whale is masculine by his enormous size) is a humpback. Probably checking out the scene for his friends who are following in a few weeks.

Steve is a glider pilot on land and spends a lot of time watching the birds working thermals and lift off the mountains – in particular, the pelicans, which look ungainly on land, but are amazing pilots.

They love to fly in what human pilots know as "ground effect", where the air compresses between their wings and the water, giving them a better glide ratio. You’ll see them rise up a few wing spans from the water while flapping, and then descend into ground effect and glide for a long distance. This technique works for them even in calm conditions. Check out the left wing on the chap above. He’s actually leaving a wake off his wing tip.

Most of the time when it is calm the pelicans hang out with their buddies in large groups.

We’re also seeing quite a few turkey vultures. They are the high fliers, the top of the Baja soaring heap. And they are very good at working weak lift. They’ll sit on the beach, just chilling, until there is enough breeze to create lift off the hills, or the weather warms enough to create thermals, and then off they go. On the ground they are not the prettiest of birds, but in the air they are wonderful to behold.

Even the sea gulls here are into soaring. And check out the design of their wings. Where the turkey vultures have large, low aspect ratio foils, and very light wing loading (which you can tell by the way they respond to the lift they encounter) these sea gulls have much higher aspect ratio wings. With a higher wing loading they are able to "penetrate" into the wind better. They need more lift to soar, but once the conditions become sufficiently strong for them to stay up without flapping, they are very graceful pilots. How about scaling up these wings for a fully roached mainsail?

We were heading north, towards Bahia Concepcion, when we saw a pod of dolphins feeding. Several of the dolphins were leaping vertically out of the water, the way whales sometimes breech – but these dolphins were getting at least twice their body length above the water, and maybe more. At the top of their trajectory they would rotate through a graceful 180 degrees and then make a straight dive back into the water. If you were watching an acrobatic aircraft contest they would get very high marks from the judges for these maneuvers (called "hammerheads" or "stall turns" in the aerobatic world). By the time we got on deck with the camera they’d finished this part of their show.

As Wind Horse got closer they along they came to say "hello". But as we’ve come to learn, they don’t stay long – our bow wave is too small for them to ride on.

A few days later we were heading south again. During the 80-mile trip we must have cruised past a thousand dolphin feeding in several large groups. As they sensed us coming they would fly towards us for a brief look.

We never get tired of watching dolphin play around us. We just wish they’d stay longer, as in the olden days when we had bigger bow waves.

And then, as we were heading south back towards La Paz, we ran across this fine family. There’s Dad, Mom, and three kids, or maybe two kids and an uncle or aunt. Five orcas (killer whales) slowly feeding off Isla Carmen. We stopped Wind Horse, shut down the electronics, and watched them for an hour.

We were looking forward when there was a loud exhalation behind us. One of the orcas was right alongside, checking out the shape of our stern. That is a full frame photo – no cropping – and you can see the life line in the port corner as a reference. There could not have been three feet (90cm) between his or her head and our hull.

Two of the orcas cruised along our hull, undoubtedly having a good look at our dorsal fins (stabilizers), before emerging off the bow. This is another uncropped photo.

Fifteen minutes later there was a huge humpback whale off our bow.