Bluetrue Baja

We spent the first weeks of our journey (outside of Canada) in a place that we love and have been dreaming about for years: beautiful Baja.

Baja is the blue true dream -- the place where electric blue sky meets aquamarine Sea of Cortez, which marries the brilliant blue Pacific at El Arco ("Land's End").  It is "La Frontera" to the locals, "the world's aquarium" according to Jacques Costeau, and one of Dr. Sylvia Earle's top "hope spots" -- critical to the health of the ocean, "Earth's blue heart".

Baja is the place where, with limited means but great heart Francisco Mayoral ("Pachico"), managed to protect the magnificent gray whales and San Ignacio Lagoon by reaching out to fellow fishermen and to poet and environmentalist Homero Aridjis.

It is the place that inspired John Steinbeck to say, in "Journal of the Sea of Cortez: "....all things are one thing and one thing is all things -- plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planet and an expanding universe -- all bound together by the elastic string of time."

We left Baja in August with full hearts, and some concern about the fragile state of its oceans, and developing communities.  Two days ago, we were heartbroken to learn that a violent hurricane tore up the peninsula, leaving devastation in its path.

We know two wonderful organizations whose work will be critical to Baja's healing and regeneration.  The Todos Santos Palapa Society (www.palapasociety.org) believes the future of the pueblo resides in the education and welfare of children, and provides scholarship, educational, medical and environmental programs for local children and families.  Mission Blue (www.mission-blue.org) is working to save the world's oceans by creating "Hope Zones", a network of protected marine areas similar to our land-based National Parks, starting with zones in The Sea of Cortez.

So this is our love letter to and prayer for beautiful Baja -- that we will work together to help her to heal and rebuild, by supporting the good work of these and other wonderful organizations, and that she will recover fully, and be a blue true dream, Earth's blue heart, for generations to come.