By YVETTE CARDOZO; BILL HIRSCH

SEA OF CORTEZ, Mexico - Dinner awaited: medium rare steak and lobster tail.

But . . .

"I hate to do this to you just before this dinner but there's a mammoth pod of dolphins off our bow." The announcement on the ship's loudspeaker sounded almost apologetic. This was, after all, our grand finale dinner.

However, yards from the ship were hundreds and hundreds of saddleback dolphins, splashing and leaping and twisting in the rays of golden sunset light, for a good 20 minutes.

When nature's show was over we headed in for dinner and were just settling bottoms into chairs when Capt. Shawnda Gallup's voice echoed again, "Uh, folks. We've got rays. Dozens of them."

Sure enough, their large black bodies were just inches below the surface. It was like being surrounded by shadows. Every so often, a set of wingtips would break the surface. One of the beasts actually jumped. Since when do rays jump?

Back to dinner. This time, the hot rolls actually made it to the table.

"Er, you really don't want to miss this. It's a blue whale."

Capt. Gallup didn't need to tell us. A hundred feet of body slid alongside our boat. The thing was only 20 feet shorter than our 120- foot vessel. And it came up hardly five yards from our starboard side. We could see its dorsal fin nearly filling the lounge window.

Blue whales are the largest in the ocean. A small child could swim through its arteries. And here it was just feet from our railing. It surfaced not once but three times before our light faded completely.

Welcome to the Sea of Cortez...........................

Above water, the desert comes right down to the sea, resulting in a surreal mix of cactus, sand dunes and mangroves.

The high point of our first few days was a swim with sea lions. ............ From a skiff, we slipped into the water and were instantly surrounded by slick black heads and twitching whiskers. The sea lions moved with lightning speed, darting and swooping, doing barrel rolls and folding their bodies backward like gymnasts...................

# posted by yomexicoNEWS @ 9:09 PM