Guadalupe Island Mexico

This is an old photo but actually one of my favorite photos that I own.  This is me and my brothers at the top of Guadalupe Island (the westernmost point of Mexico) which is about 250 miles west off the coast.  To get the island was treacherous and we had to endure 15-20 gale warning swells where waves were crashing over the boat.  Everyone was seasick except Danny and I and we had never navigated a boat yet we were forced into that night since everyone else was curled up in bed with very nasty seasickness. I mean it was bad that night plowing through stormy seas wondering if we were going to make it.  The only thing we had was the navigation system and radar which would illuminate large ships in our paths.  The whole night we were thinking we were going to capsize or hit a whale like Moby Dick.

Well we made it and this was the picture we took from this extremely remote island the very next day. The island is uninhabited except for  a few unlucky soldiers from Mexico that guard the island on 6 months shifts to make sure no other country tries to take it over.  What makes this place amazing is the wildlife. The seals are completely tame, there are white sharks everywhere and the Albatross land on this Island since it is the only land within hundreds of miles.  We are one of the few humans to see this place and it felt great. It was absolutely beautiful here and peaceful but still scary since we were in the middle of nowhere literally with no one else around.  The island was sunny and windy but it was nowhere near as bad as the gale force winds and storms that surrounded it.  The sheer size of the mountains on the island creates a Jetty effect where the clouds basically part around the island allowing the suns to shine even when everything else around it is stormy.

It was a great trip because we knew it would be one of the few trips we would ever get to take together.  We bonded over the difficulty of getting there and over the beautiful things we saw when we finally arrived.  This was a great trip I will always remember.