Sea of Cortez

 One of the most amazing things about Loreto is the sea. The National Marine Park, and its inclusion in the broader UNESCO World Heritage Site, draw people from around the world. It is so revered for its clarity and diversity, that Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a renowned ocean explorer and marine conservationist, famously called the Sea of Cortez (also known as the Gulf of California) "the aquarium of the world" due to its incredible biodiversity and abundance of marine life. 

“Below the Mexican border the water changes color,” John Steinbeck once wrote. “It takes on a deep ultramarine blue - a washtub bluing blue, intense and seeming to penetrate deep into the water.” Steinbeck writes of a large whale shark which “cruised about us, his fin high above the water,” of large horned sharks, hammerhead sharks, basking sharks and “great numbers of sand sharks,” as well as great manta rays, sting rays, tuna, swordfish, urchins, morays and so very much more.

In total, around 900 species of fish have been recorded in the UNESCO World Heritage Site, which comprises 244 islands, islets and coastal areas in total. The waters remain amongst the most productive in the world even today. Read more about this world treasure here.

It was in 1940 that John Steinbeck, author of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, journeyed along the Gulf of California with marine biologist Ed Ricketts, later immortalising his experiences and the place itself in the non-fiction book The Log from the Sea of Cortez.