Exploring Isla Isabel: Eyeball to eyeball with the Blue-footed Booby
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- Published on Friday, 19 April 2013 12:22
- Written by John Pint
Isabel Island is located 34 kilometers off Mexico’s western coast. It is a wildlife refuge with a population of some 42,000 birds and in 2003 was named a World Heritage Site. Because the birds and iguanas on the island have no natural enemies, human visitors can get quite close to them, for which reason the island is sometimes called the Galapagos of Mexico.
You can take a boat to Isabel either from San Blas or from Boca de Camichín, both in the state of Nayarit. Although Camichín is well off the beaten track, it’s said to be a short 90-minute boat ride from the island, while the trip from San Blas supposedly takes twice as long. We opted for the short route, spent a night in a hotel at Santiago Ixcuintla and arrived in nearby Boca de Camichín at 7 a.m., ready for adventure.
Our guide and captain, Julio Mata, started things off with a short introduction to the number one local industry of Camichín: oyster farming. “The system we use was invented by the Japanese and introduced to us in 1976 as Project Pider Pesca,” he began.