A Yearly Pilgrimage to the Sea of Cortez
Sunday, November 16, 2025 at 12:00 AM
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Saturday, November 22, 2025 at 11:59 PM
This November we return to one of the most extraordinary places on Earth, the Sea of Cortez. Sailing aboard a flotilla of sailing vessels, we leave the shore behind and enter a world that has stirred explorers, mariners, and naturalists for centuries. With every mile, the modern world recedes. The horizon opens. The rhythm of wind and water becomes our only clock.
Stretching between the rugged spine of the Baja Peninsula and the mainland of Mexico, this narrow sea holds an almost mythical place in the story of our planet. Born five to six million years ago when tectonic forces pulled the peninsula away from the continent, it is a young and vibrant sea, a meeting place of desert and ocean where life flourishes in improbable abundance. Jacques Cousteau once called it “the aquarium of the planet” and UNESCO recognizes it as one of the most diverse marine environments on Earth, home to whales, dolphins, sea lions, manta rays, and over 5,000 species of micro-invertebrates. In the spring of 1940, author John Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts sailed into these same waters aboard the Western Flyer. Their voyage was part scientific expedition, part meditation on the interconnectedness of life. They moved slowly from cove to cove, collecting specimens from tide pools, recording observations, and allowing the landscape and sea to provoke deeper questions about humanity’s place in the natural order. Steinbeck, weary from fame and the noise of the world, found here a rare clarity that shaped his later work.
Programming Schedule
We sail in their wake not to replicate their journey exactly but to honor its spirit. This is a voyage of curiosity, humility, and reconnection. For seven days we live by the elements. The silence is vast, broken only by the exhale of a surfacing whale or the rustle of the sail. Mornings begin with the soft light over volcanic cliffs. Afternoons are spent swimming in crystalline coves, walking on shores where no footprints linger, and watching seabirds wheel in the thermals. Evenings bring shared meals, quiet conversation, and skies so dense with stars they feel like an ocean above.
There is no signal here. No feeds or alerts. What we gain instead is the rare space to listen to the ocean, to each other, and to ourselves. We return with memories and a renewed sense of purpose, carrying forward the lesson that we only protect what we love, we only love what we understand, and we only understand what we have taken the time to know.
Cost per person: USD 2,500–3,000 all inclusive
