In the United States, three of the four states with the most lakes are in the Midwest. As such, the lake vacation is a longstanding tradition for many Midwestern families.
What makes a perfect lake resort? You should be able to walk out your door in flip-flops and a swimsuit, then stroll right down to a swimming beach. There should be activities that interest everyone in the family, from little kids to sulky teens to stressed parents to lake-loving seniors. Plus, comfortable rooms and tasty things to eat. Find it all at these six Midwest lake resorts. It’s time to plan a family trip.
It’s 7 a.m., and six of us are looking for pictographs while cruising along Canada’s British Columbia coast on a small boat. The air is cool, and the still water reflects pines and snowy mountains.
Our guide, Greg Shea of Maple Leaf Adventures, lives on the islands off the British Columbia coast. He won’t say exactly what the red marks on the rock faces symbolize — First Nations people have different opinions about what they signify, and if anybody knows for sure, they’re not telling the general public. One looks like a fish standing on its tail. The pictographs (made with red ochre and oily fish eggs, then sealed with urine) date back perhaps 250 years.
Desolation Sound pictographs. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
Shea is a fast talker with endless knowledge of the British Columbia coast. While we ponder pictographs, he explains the Grease Trail that First Nations people developed for trading valuable eulachon (also called ooligan or candlefish) oil. They’d transport it inside the hollow tubes of bull kelp sealed with cedar corks.
“You’d put a stick across your back like this,” he demonstrates animatedly, an enthusiastic guide no matter what time of the day or night. “And then you would slide the tubes of your grease onto your stick. And you know, then they would walk. And you’d basically be going through the forest with a stick full of tubes.”
Then, he interrupts himself, saying, “Oh, a merganser!” He seamlessly slips from discussing First Nations culture to the natural world to George Vancouver’s travels and the difficulties of reading the complicated tidal patterns within Desolation Sound.
Photo by Teresa Bergen
For nature lovers who enjoy slow-paced adventures and lots of talk about trees, critters, and sea life, cruising Desolation Sound with Maple Leaf Adventures is bliss. Our group of 12 passengers and 10 crewmembers aboard the 138-foot luxury catamaran Cascadia had the extra luck of temperatures in the 60s and low 70s and no rain during our four-night springtime cruise.
What is Desolation Sound?
Desolation Sound Marine Provincial Park is well known to boaters. This area of fjords and islands lies between mainland British Columbia and about halfway up the east side of Vancouver Island. Our cruise started in the Vancouver Island town of Campbell River.
As we wound around uninhabited islands looking for wildlife, snow-capped mountains towered over us. At Desolation Sound’s most dramatic point, the peak of Mount Addenbroke rises 5,200 feet above the water. Our boat floated 2,300 feet from the bottom of the sea.
Sunrise over Desolation Sound. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
“It is very awe-inspiring,” said Emily Grubb, our boat’s naturalist. “You feel so small because there’s so much water below you and so much land above you.”
“The beautiful blue color of the water is really special to this area,” Emily Grubb, our boat’s naturalist, said. “It is very awe-inspiring in the sense that you feel so small because there’s so much water below you and so much land above you.” Add in powerful waterfalls and some black bear sightings, and you have an incredible nature break.
One of the giant, crashing waterfalls of Toba Inlet. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
During our trip, we were often the only boat visible. But the area gets crowded during summer, when boaters come for the sunny days and warm water. In certain places, Desolation Sound heats up to a swimmable 75 degrees.
Cruising, hiking, and kayaking
Our main activity was cruising around admiring the scenery, either on the Cascadia itself or the two small crafts (called tenders) that took us into places too tight for a deluxe, oversized catamaran. As we sat comfortably on the padded seats of the Auklet and Puffin, Grubb and Shea pointed out trees and wildflowers.
We were a little early for the humpback whales that visit the area in summer. But one day, a pod of graceful and glistening Dall’s porpoises played in the tender’s wake. We also saw Pacific white-sided dolphins, harbor seals, Steller and California sea lions, and two black bears. Binoculars were a must for this trip, especially for safe bear viewing.
The Cascadia carries a fleet of tandem inflatable kayaks. Twice, Grubb took four of us avid kayakers out to see the wilderness at an even more intimate level. We got right on the shoreline of the inlets, where we could see ochre sea stars and watch barnacles in action. We almost tipped our kayak, peering into the water to watch the feather-like appendages sticking out of the holes in barnacles, combing the water for edible microscopic organisms. Curious harbor seals stuck their heads out of the water to stare at us.
Photo by Teresa Bergen
We also got a good look at many seabirds. Grubb, a bird enthusiast, is always happy when people hoping to see bears and whales develop an interest in birds.
“It is kind of neat how quickly people kind of jump on the bird train,” Grubb said. “Especially when you start talking about some of their weird characteristics.” We saw plenty of her favorite sea bird, the black oystercatcher, with its long red beak.
Our group also had chances to go for short hikes in the forests of red cypress, Douglas fir, hemlock, and Sitka spruce. There, we saw remnants of 1920s logging operations. A hundred years later, we could still see the holes in gigantic stumps where loggers had driven in springboards to stand on while they worked two-person crosscut saws.
Grubb explaining old logging techniques. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
Maple Leaf Adventures’ three-ship fleet
This family-run business based in Victoria runs British Columbia and Alaska cruises on three distinctive boats. The Cascadia is by far the poshest, with a jacuzzi, spacious staterooms, and large lounging areas both inside and out. It even has a helicopter pad for winter heliskiing trips.
Guests can also choose to sail on the Maple Leaf, a 92-foot schooner built in 1904, or Swell, a 1912 tugboat. Each has a very different personality and feel.
When the helicopter is absent, Cascadia’s helipad is a perfect morning yoga spot. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
“[Guests] go onto the website and they will identify with one of three vessels,” said Shea, who frequently captains the Maple Leaf.
I initially chose the gorgeous tugboat Swell. But the dates didn’t work out, so instead, I wound up on the Cascadia. And it’s hard to argue with luxury.
“For some it’s a little bit uncomfortable on the smaller boats,” Shea told me. “Where Cascadia’s kind of bridging that and bringing that comfort to the wilderness, but also the adventure and the ability for the ship to go into remote places.”
Photo by Teresa Bergen
One of the other guests told me that she and her husband had also wanted to cruise on Swell — until they contemplated how his six-foot-plus frame would feel in the cramped confines of the tugboat.
Whichever boat guests choose, traveling with Maple Leaf Adventures is a slow tourism experience. During our five-day trip, the Cascadia only covered 132 nautical miles (151 miles for you landlubbers). Our average cruising speed was 8 knots (9.2 mph).
If you have a voracious appetite for scenery and want to enjoy watching waterfalls and bears, this trip is for you.
Mike Whan: “We write an incredible white paper, we send that out and we think ‘job well done.'”
Water is an integral part of everyday life. It’s also vital to golf.
That’s why the United States Golf Association says it’s investing $30 million in its effort to drive forward a more sustainable game. Last month, the USGA announced a multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment toward reducing golf’s use of water.
Efforts to reduce water usage are nothing new in the game, but it’s more vital now than ever.
“There’s only going to be more competition for our water resources as population increases,” said Cole Thompson, the USGA’s Director of Turfgrass and Environmental Research. “That’s really what this initiative is, is the USGA committing to hopefully leading the industry toward water resiliency.”
The USGA’s $30 million commitment over the next 15 years will advance underutilized strategies and technologies that golf courses can use to economically reduce their use of water, a vital and increasingly regulated natural resource with near- and long-term cost and availability concerns. The work will focus on irrigation optimization, advanced conservation innovation and water sourcing and storage.
“The long-term economic and environmental sustainability of green-grass golf courses – where more than 25 million people enjoy the game and millions more are employed – will be challenged in certain regions if the game doesn’t advance this critical work now,” Mike Whan, CEO of the USGA, said in a release. “We are enthused and impressed by the reductions golf course superintendents have pursued over the past decade, and even more optimistic about the future. The USGA is ready to not only contribute our voice, but also our resources and expertise, to help our golf course partners and ensure golf’s future.”
Some highlights of the commitment include:
Launching and continuously update a water resilience playbook for the game of golf
Demonstrate underutilized and emerging, research-based practices
Understand and break down barriers to adoption of proven strategies (including financial barriers)
Continue to support water resilience research and turfgrass breeding programs
The work toward greater water resilience propels many of the current and emerging practices employed throughout golf, which have contributed to a 29 percent reduction in golf’s use of water from 2005-20. The USGA’s initiative will build on that benchmark, with the goal of more widespread adoption nationwide.
“The problem of water is not going away,” Thompson said. “You’ve got to think about what your water sources are and if they’re being used efficiently, so you know if you can diversify your water supply.”
One of the best examples of water conservation is at Pasatiempo Golf Club in California, which in September of 2017 started using a $9 million irrigation setup, consisting of a 500,000-gallon subterranean water storage tank, a water treatment facility and a pump station.
The wastewater treatment site supplied between 60 percent and 70 percent of Pasatiempo’s irrigation needs annually, superintendent Justin Mandon said. In addition, Mandon said Pasatiempo also used potable water and well water, though its use of potable water has dropped nearly 80 percent since opening the wastewater treatment site.
“I’m not aware of other courses anywhere that use three different sources of water,” Mandon said.
Mandon has worked with the USGA and has spoke at water summits to discuss Pasatiempo’s changes and how other courses can do their part.
“Even if you think you’re in an area where you have very secure water, you really need to start thinking about where does your water actually come from, who controls that,” Mandon said. “Start really started having those conversations about where this commodity is going to start to go because it’s going to become more and more limited, regardless of where you are in the United States.”
The USGA is partnering with courses on numerous field projects designed to show where and when the water conservation potential of a strategy outweighs the investment and disruption required for implementation. Research supports that drought-tolerant grasses use about 20 percent less water than commonly used varieties, depending on location and grassing scheme, and installing them typically pays off in five to 10 years.
With a goal of identifying early adopters, the USGA will continue to collaborate in a series of water summits in several states along with its Allied Golf Associations, as it seeks to draw the best talent and innovations toward the program’s goals.
The organization will also work together with golf courses on sharing best practices and innovations that could be more widely adopted to advance program goals.
“If you employ the right strategies in your region, this can help get to a reasonable amount of water to provide a golf course,” Thompson said.
Whan believes the USGA (and other governing bodies) have long had good intentions when it comes to water conservation, but simply tried to hand research down to golf courses already facing financial battles.
With the new initiatives, the CEO believes the pathway to success becomes more practical.
“What I said to the board when I got there is we’ve been really good at research right up until the white paper. We go spend a bunch of money on research, we write an incredible white paper, we send that out and we think ‘job well done.’ We’ve got to move from white paper to actually putting product in the dirt,” Whan said. “So our 15-30-45 initiative which is 15 years, $30 million to reduce water on a golf course by 45 percent, you can’t just show somebody on a pamphlet how to do that.
“Like, if somebody can’t afford the $5 million dollar drip irrigation change, we’re going to have to put up the five and let them pay us back a million a year over five years. We’ve got to create a process.”
For example, Golfweek learned that in the anchor agreement the USGA signed with Pebble Beach — which includes hosting four U.S. Women’s Opens — that the oldest continuous working golf course west of the Mississippi will be a testing ground of sorts. Officials will see what they can learn from Del Monte Golf Course, which sits right near downtown Monterey.
“They’re kind of letting us experiment at Del Monte and actually try different things,” Whan said. “We’ve got a similar agreement in the South, we’re taking research and we’re actually putting it in the ground so that we can show somebody, ‘hey, at this place we reduced water by 53 percent. Let us tell you how, and do you want to try to do that here at your own course?’
“I think in the past we stopped at the white-paper stage, like in a 2-by-2 plot of land at UC Riverside we showed that this strain of grass needs 30 percent less water. But that doesn’t help your typical superintendent.
“We’re going to take it to the next level.”
Golfweek’s Tim Schmitt contributed to this report.
Do you want to swim with a 40-foot-long endangered fish that weighs 11 tons? Lots of people do, making whale shark tourism popular in places like western Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In North America, La Paz, Mexico, is the place to swim with these enormous creatures.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species lists the whale shark as “vulnerable to extinction.” Their biggest threat is human activity. While hunting is the biggest problem, conservationists are also watching the steep rise in wildlife tourism.
In February, La Paz, a city of 250,000 on the Baja Peninsula, suspended whale shark tours in the Bay of La Paz because of a sudden drop in sightings. After about six weeks — which is long in tourism time and dollars — local authorities decided tours could resume.
Photo courtesy of FITUPAZ
Outdoors Wire talked to Ximena Vega, a tourist guide at Red Travel Mexico, to find out what was going on with the suspension and how people monitor whale sharks and decide on safe levels of human interaction.
“The whale shark population in La Paz Bay is monitored mainly by the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP), but it involves environmental authorities, tourism service providers, the scientific community, and NGOs,” Vega said.
Twice a week, boats go out to established areas 700 meters from the coast and “report on the number of sharks sighted, the sighting sites, the average size of the specimens and their behavior, as well as weather conditions,” Vega said. “This pause in whale shark activities is one of the measures we take to protect the population. When five or fewer of the species are seen within a defined area, these activities are suspended.”
Photo courtesy of FITUPAZ
The Bay of La Paz is a protected area where the number of boats allowed is strictly limited. “Only one boat is allowed per whale shark, and there can be a maximum of only 14 boats per shift,” Vega said. All boats are monitored via GPS, must stay within a defined area, and comply with strict speed limits.
Whale sharks prefer warm water temperatures above 72 degrees. These filter feeders mostly swim at the ocean’s surface, which makes them vulnerable to boat strikes, fishing mishaps, plastic ingestion, and tourism. Each whale shark has a unique spot pattern akin to human fingerprints. This is super convenient for researchers tracking the endangered species.
If you decide to swim with whale sharks in La Paz or elsewhere, enter the water slowly and stay at least a meter away. Don’t touch the sharks, and — it should go without saying, but some yahoos need to be told — do not attempt to ride the shark. Show some respect for the world’s largest fish.
Some say the word “spa” is an acronym for the Latin phrase Sanus Per Aquam, meaning “healing through water.” Others say it came from the springs of Spa, Belgium, around which a famous health resort grew. Or could it be from the Walloon (a French dialect spoken in parts of Belgium) word for “fountain?”
Whatever. We love the feeling of mineral-rich hot springs water in outdoor pools, especially after a day of hiking. The combo of calcium, magnesium, sodium, iron, and other dissolved minerals has soothed many an aching muscle–and, some folks claim, provided miraculous cures. The western US is rich in hot springs, ranging from humble holes out in the woods to water channeled into manmade pools at luxe resorts. Here are some of the loveliest springs where you can stay overnight in comfort while taking the healing waters. Or ask about a day pass.
Does your mom gravitate toward lakes, rivers, streams, and the sea? Do people accuse her of being a mermaid? If so, celebrate Mother’s Day with a gift that recognizes her affinity for water. Whether she loves to glide over the rivers on a paddle board, challenge the waves while surfing, plunge in for a swim, or dive deep with an air tank, these gifts will make her day. And consider getting yourself a new swimsuit and updating your gear, too, so you can join mom in her aquatic adventures. Because the best Mother’s Day gift is a shared experience that will make incredible memories.
A hot pink kayak drops over the edge of a giant waterfall. For a few seconds, only froth and foam are visible. Then, a light pink spot emerges from the foam, getting brighter and brighter until kayaker Dane Jackson emerges victorious, still in his kayak. It’s the first giant drop in his descent down the world’s steepest rideable waterfall series at Chiapas, Mexico’s Santo Domingo Gorge.
Spoiler alert: he lived to tell the tale.
The four-part gorge drops more than 300 feet in less than .2 miles. Its four powerful waterfalls are Angel Wings, The Dome, Toboggan, and Raw Dog.
Jackson is a four-time Freestyle World Champion kayaker. His whitewater adventures include feats in Chile, Pakistan, and Kenya. But Chiapas, Mexico, has been on his mind for the last decade.
“I have been to so many incredible places all over the world, but the Santo Domingo Gorge is truly a one-of-a-kind sequence of waterfalls,” Jackson said in a statement. “It is one of those places you can’t believe when you see it. You can look up at that majestic sequence of waterfalls and know you can run the entire thing; there is nowhere and nothing like it.”
Photo by Lucas Gilman
The beautiful falls could easily turn deadly. Much of the Santo Domingo River is only accessible by kayak. So, if something were to go wrong, good luck getting medical help in time! The nearest hospital is two hours away by rough back roads. And that’s only going to help if you can get the kayaker out of the gorge.
Jackson assembled an international safety paddle team in case he ran into trouble. His crew — Israel “River” Maderos (Mexico), Bren Orton (United Kingdom), Adrian Mattern (Germany), David Sodomka (Czech Republic), and Issac Martinez (Mexico) — was trained in emergency procedures and positioned along the route. You can see them in the video, sitting in the calm pools at the bottoms of the falls, probably crossing their fingers and toes that Jackson didn’t wipe out. California-based adventure photographer Lucas Gilman captured the footage.
Photo by David Sodomka
Jackson, 29, is based in Rock Island, Tennessee. He spends more than half the year living in his RV while traveling to kayaking events and looking for new thrills. Jackson started kayaking as a child. His father, kayak champ and designer Eric Jackson, founded Jackson Kayak.
Discover tales of sunken ships, crashed planes, and more.
Ken Stewart first learned to scuba dive in 1989 and immediately became hooked. But by 2003, after almost 800 dives, his beloved sport had become a bit same-old, same-old.
“All the fish start looking alike,” Stewart said. “If you go from Florida to any exotic country, you’ll say, ‘oh, man, that fish looks like the same fish, or the same corals.’ There were some places that look more exotic than the other. But after a while, it becomes repetitive.”
His diving life perked up when a documentary filmmaker named Karuna Eberl contacted him. By then, Stewart, a Nashville resident, was the Southern states representative for the National Association of Black Scuba Divers. Eberl asked Stewart to put her in touch with some Black divers willing to be interviewed for her documentary “The Guerrero Project.” The slave ship Guerrero, which has still not been found, sank in 1827 somewhere around what is now Biscayne National Park in Florida.
Photo by Tane Casserley
The project led Stewart to meet the late Brenda Lanzendorf, a park archeologist at Biscayne National Park. “We became instant friends,” Stewart said. “She had this infectious personality. She was unbelievable.” Lazendorf was congressionally mandated to monitor the 41 or so wrecks in Biscayne National Park. But she was a lone diver. And she needed a diving buddy.
Back home in Nashville, Stewart had an epiphany. He sent out an email to the divers who’d become involved in the Guerrero project. “I said, ‘Are you tired of the same old diving? Let’s dive with a purpose.’ And that’s exactly how it started.” Within a year, Lazendorf and Stewart had assembled the first Diving with a Purpose (DWP) program.
Diving with a Purpose today
Now about 20 years old, DWP is a leading volunteer underwater archaeology program. It provides education, training, and project support services for submerged conservation projects and heritage preservation. DWP focuses on the African diaspora but also works on many other shipwrecks.
More than 300 people have participated in DWP. Most are repeat attendees. Every year, a DWP group dives together in Florida, documenting wrecks. The program has expanded from Biscayne National Park to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).
Stewart is involved with DWP’s spinoff program, Youth Diving with a Purpose (YWDP), which trains young divers to be archeology advocates that help document shipwrecks. Additionally, DWP consults on projects worldwide.
Underwater archeology
If you’re like me, your first vision of diving into a shipwreck includes swimming around a whole ship on the seafloor, the vessel’s name clearly written on the side, and perhaps an old skeleton still at the helm. I probably saw this in a cartoon.
“In the Keys, any wooden ship that has sunk, it’s not intact,” Stewart informed me. In addition to deterioration caused by ocean activity, undersea worms eat the wood. Instead of an intact vessel, divers explore a field of artifacts on the ocean floor. “The worms can’t eat the artifacts,” Stewart said.
Divers map the artifacts with pin flags and strings called baselines. They use trilateration mapping, which lets them determine positions using distances from at least three known points. The baseline could be 300 yards long. The divers form groups of two to work sections of the wreck. While underwater, they’re mapping, writing figures down, and even doing in situ drawings that can involve staying in the same place for an hour or more.
Photo by Tane Casserley
Part of the process is figuring out what’s an artifact and what isn’t. “Usually the artifacts have some kind of crustaceans on it, so it’s very difficult to determine what an artifact is when it’s on the ocean floor,” Stewart said. “Sometimes you can take your knife and you can hit the artifact. Oh, it sounds like metal. So you know Mother Nature didn’t make metal. So they’ll do that with every artifact along those 300 yards of baseline. Every one.” Before the divers resurface, they remove all the flags and the baseline. Two architects work with DWP to turn the divers’ info into site maps.
This kind of detailed work takes a special kind of diver. It’s not for everybody. Many divers prefer working with DWP’s conservation program, Stewart says, which is more hands-on and helps restore coral reefs.
DWP and the African diaspora
A lot of people contact DWP because they want to help document slave ships, Stewart said. However, not many have been found. Stewart has only conducted dives on three of them. “We’re laying the groundwork for people who want to be involved in the documentation of a slave wreck when and if another one is found,” he said.
The first slave ship Stewart dove was the Henrietta Marie, an English ship that carried captive Africans to the West Indies. It wrecked in 1700, 35 miles off the coast of Key West. Since it was on its way back to England, no Africans were on board. Treasure hunter Mel Fisher found it in 1972, and Stewart dove it in the late 1980s.
“The eeriness of it is what kind of gets to you,” Stewart told me.
Eventually, the cleaned-up artifacts toured the United States in a traveling exhibit called “A Slave Ship Speaks.” “The thing that really brings tears to your eyes, and everybody who has seen it, is the shackles for the children,” Stewart said. In his work with youth, Stewart tries to convey the horror of finding oneself enslaved. “I tell the children all the time, here you are walking down the street and then somebody snatches you up and takes you to another country. You never see your family again. Can you imagine that? And most kids can’t. Most people can’t.”
The National Association of Black Scuba Divers placed a plaque at the site of the Henrietta Marie. Divers can use GPS to find the plaque and the ship’s hull, which is encased in sand.
Photo courtesy of Diving with a Purpose
DWP has also documented Tuskegee Airmen airplanes in Michigan’s Lake Huron. The men who flew these planes were the first Black military aviators in the country. During World War II, they escorted American bombers over Italy and protected larger bombers from German planes. Fifteen of the airmen died while training over the Great Lakes. DWP was able to document the plane flown by Lieutenant Frank H. Moody. The organization also helped raise funds to place a memorial to the Tuskegee Airmen beside Lake Huron.
As for the Guerrero, the wrecked ship that inspired DWP’s creation, divers are still looking. This July, YDWP is conducting what Stewart hopes will be the final search for the ship. “I’m bringing the crème de la crème, the best that I’ve got,” he said. “These kids are dynamic.” And if they finally find the Guerrero, DWP will have a whole new chapter in its documentation mission.
Want to help? Qualified divers with more than 30 dives (or 25 for youth) are welcome to get involved with DWP. You can also donate to Diving with a Purpose here.
Want to learn more about slave ships? The Africatown Heritage House in Mobile, Alabama, is opening its new exhibit documenting the Clotilda on July 8, 2023.
We were 10 snorkelers gliding above tens of thousands of black-striped Salema fish. They stretched ahead of and behind us, seemingly endless. Every rock on the seabed 40 feet below was visible in the clear water. It felt like floating through a fish cathedral. Underwater, we heard the crackling sound of sea life going about its business. Above water, the retching noise of male sea lions reminding us who was boss of Champion Rock in the Galápagos Islands.
I was on a new four-night western Galápagos itinerary with Hurtigruten Expeditions. The Norwegian brand is best known for cold water cruising but expanded into the warmer Galápagos in 2022.
Photo by Ashton Ray Hansen courtesy of Hurtigruten Expeditions
If the word “cruise” makes you think of casinos, nightlife, and a moving city at sea, know that expedition cruises are a different beast. The Santa Cruz II holds up to 90 passengers and is about getting outside and experiencing nature without sacrificing comfortable beds and upscale meals. As seasoned Hurtigruten guide Jhover Alvarez puts it, “Are the Galápagos for you? If you have a genuine interest in science. The thing is to understand what you’re looking at and the importance of conservation.”
Getting to know the islands
The Galápagos Islands are 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador and have been part of that country since 1832. Scientists estimate the oldest of these 127 volcanic islands to be around 4 million years old. They were formed by the Galapagos hotspot, part of the famous “Ring of Fire” around the Pacific Ocean. Magma came up through the Nazca plate, forming volcanoes. The volcanoes move with the plate, so subsequent eruptions through the hotspot formed more islands. Underwater volcanic activity is almost constant. “We are floating in an ocean of liquid rock,” Alvarez explained.
About 25,000 people live in the Galápagos, mostly concentrated in a few towns. Most of the islands are uninhabited and only reachable by boat.
Santa Cruz Island. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
Because of the area’s delicate ecology, the Galápagos strictly regulates visits. Ninety-seven percent of the land is a national park, and visitors must be with a licensed national park guide. You can fly into one of two airports in the islands and arrange tours on your own, or take the much cushier option of joining a cruise, where activities and permits are arranged for you.
Animals of the Galápagos
Africa has the Big 5 must-see animals. Guests of Hurtigruten Expeditions look for the Big 15. Since different animals live on different islands, you won’t see all of them unless you visit the right combination of places. On my short four-night cruise, I saw 12.
Land iguanas nest at Cerro Dragon on Santa Cruz Island. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
Galápagos wildlife watching takes place on land and in the water. Our activity choices included walks, rides in Zodiac boats, glass bottom boat rides, snorkeling, kayaking, and paddleboarding. On the more populated island of Santa Cruz, we also had a short bike ride.
Kayaking off Floreana Island. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
The Zodiac boats, also called pangas, were great for animal sightings. At Punta Vicente Roca on the west side of Isabela Island, we saw six of the Big 15 — flightless cormorants, blue-footed boobies, Galápagos penguins, sea lions, marine iguanas, and fur seals — on a single panga ride. Plus lots of animals that didn’t make the cut, like pelicans, manta rays, sea turtles, and a bright orange wrasse. Don’t forget your sunscreen and water shoes for this action-packed tour.
Searching for wildlife on a panga, or Zodiac. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
Our walk at Punta Espinoza on Fernandina Island was a highlight for lizard lovers. The area is home to immense quantities of marine iguanas. The animals lay in vast formations of scaly glory, draped over each other on rocks, sometimes with a sharp-clawed arm around a neighbor like reptilian BFFs. These are some of the oldest animals in the Galápagos.
The theory is that the marine iguana’s ancestors floated over from mainland Ecuador on rafts of reeds millions of years ago. Lacking much to eat on the stark volcanic islands, they adapted to living on algae, diving underwater and scraping it off the rocks with their teeth. Most marine iguanas have evolved to be darker than other iguanas, “until the whole skin turns black and is working as a huge solar panel,” our Hurtigruten guide Daniel Moreano explained. This solar power is important, as marine iguanas can lose up to 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) of body heat in a single hour of algae foraging.
Can you believe Darwin called these cuties a “hideous looking creature, of a dirty black colour, stupid, and sluggish”? / Photo by Teresa Bergen
We also saw flamingos in several brackish spots around the Santa Cruz and Floreana islands. The lava really complements their pink.
Flamingos of Floreana Island. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
Giant tortoise research
The Galápagos are famous for giant tortoises, so most visitors want to see these prehistoric relics. The Charles Darwin Research Station is the place to learn everything tortoise. This site has been essential for tortoise conservation and the repopulation of disappearing species. Workers hatch eggs in incubators, then number the hatchlings’ shells and color code them by island of origin. Giant tortoises are born with soft shells. The first few years are critical to their survival, as they’re easy prey for snakes, feral cats, and other hungry critters. A local exhibition center has more info on the center’s conservation programs and research.
A giant tortoise in the highlands of Santa Cruz Island. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
Interesting as the science center is, a trip to the highlands of Santa Cruz to see wild tortoises is more exciting. As our bus approached Rancho Manzanillo, we saw tortoises in the fields, then on the sides of the road, then in the road. Our driver carefully navigated around them — not only would it be terrible to accidentally run over an endangered tortoise, but doing so carries a ruinous fine.
The tortoises roam freely on the land. Our Hurtigruten guide Veronica Sanchez told us about tortoise life as we examined the animals’ giant shells, elephant-like legs, and skull-like faces. If you get too close, they seem to be hissing, but Sanchez explained that’s just the noise they make drawing their head into their shells — like an airlock door. We also watched fascinatingly bizarre tortoise copulation. The much smaller females look squished and long-suffering as the males slowly thrust and grunt. “The females usually try to escape,” Sanchez said.
A long weekend cruise
Hurtigruten offers several Galápagos itineraries. I was on the new western loop. For people who dream of a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Galápagos, four nights might be too short. You can choose a longer itinerary, or combine two cruises for nine nights, which many of my shipmates were doing. Or you can explore more of Ecuador by adding on a few days in Quito, or the Cloud Forest, or the many other special places in the country.
Turtles nest on this white sand beach on Floreana Island. / Photo by Teresa Bergen
If you like outdoor activities, science, and wildlife, it’s hard to imagine a more perfect place than the Galápagos. As I paddleboarded in a calm turquoise bay watching sea lions leap and play, it really didn’t seem that life could get any better.
From taking out turf to upgrading irrigation systems, golf courses are constantly focused on water.
In charge of 500 acres of irrigated turf at Sun City Palm Desert, including two 18-hole golf courses, parks and softball fields for the 50-and-over community of 5,000 homes, Tyler Truman is no stranger to concerns about how much water the courses and the surrounding areas are using.
“I can see where (the critics) are coming from,” said Truman, director of agronomy at Sun City, which includes the two golf courses at the Mountain Vista Golf Club. “And you listen to them. And then you try to educate them. This is how we are trying to use the water. This is how we are using the water.”
As the drought in the southwest deepens, with a first-ever Level 2a Shortage Condition declared for the Colorado River—a major source of water for the desert and all of Southern California—golf courses in the Coachella Valley are aware that golf is always a target for those looking at water usage.
With golf courses using between 750,000 and 1 million gallons of water a day in the desert, and with 120 golf courses in the Coachella Valley alone, golf industry officials know they need to both reduce water usage and reinforce the benefits of the usage.
Mike Whan, executive director of the U.S. Golf Association, said earlier this year he’d like to see a 45-percent reduction in golf course water usage in the next 15 years. Other USGA officials are now trying to figure out how to meet such an aggressive goal.
“I was part of a meeting to discuss if that number is realistic or not, and I think it probably is,” said Brian Whitlark, agronomist for the West Region Greens Section for the USGA based in Arizona, whose region includes the Coachella Valley. “Will a golf course in Los Angeles reduce its water by 45 percent? Probably not. But nationwide, I think that is possible.”
The Firecliff Course at Desert Willow Golf Resort in Palm Desert, California. (Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)
From taking out irrigated turf to upgrading irrigation systems and computer technology, golf courses are constantly focused on water, said Craig Kessler, director of government affairs for the Southern California Golf Association.
At the recent Southern California Golf and Water Summit in Chino Hills, Kessler was one of the speakers to a crowd of more than 200 golf professionals, general managers and course superintendents looking to share ideas and learn new strategies on water reduction.
“We want to continue to bring this great game to Californians,” said Kessler, who is also the chairman of the Coachella Valley Golf and Water Task Force. “And we understand that we live in a land of permanent drought. As we read the headlines every day, we can see the consequences of a warmer, drier climate. We recognize that we need to do those things, we are dedicated to doing those things and we want to do those things in partnership.”
The summit was held in the shadow of negotiations on availability of Colorado River water that saw Nevada and Arizona have their water allotments cut by the federal Bureau of Reclamation by as much as 21 percent. The Coachella Valley Water District and the Imperial Irrigation District are still negotiating river water allotments.
The drought is a major concern for the California golf community, which the California Alliance for Golf estimates is a $1.2 billion per year industry. In the Coachella Valley, the alliance estimates 8,000 people are directly employed in the golf industry.
Making progress on reductions
For Truman, cutting water usage at Sun City Palm Desert began when he arrived at that job 11 years ago.
“When I first got here, we were using close to 4,000 acres feet of water a year,” Truman said. “With using the technology, the soil moisture meters, not just in greens, but with Toro’s in-ground sensors, we’ve now gone from 4,000 down to 3,000 in that time period.”
To save an acre foot of water, or 325,851 gallons, managers like Truman rely more and more on technological advances. That includes soil moisture meters, which measure moisture in the soil at various spots on the golf course. Irrigation software allows Truman and his staff to individually control the nearly 10,000 sprinkler heads at Sun City Palm Desert.
Moisture detectors on the Santa Rosa and San Gorgonio golf courses allow Truman to identify where turf is being overwatered or underwatered against Truman’s desire for an 18 to 20 percent soil saturation goal. Soil wetting agents, which draw water from the surface down to the roots of grass plants, also help courses cut back on water use.
Whitlark says more courses should be using soil moisture sensors, which cost no more than $15,000 or $20,000 for a course. But other measures also will save water, he said.
“Just optimizing the irrigation system by raising the level of the sprinklers, changing nozzles, changing the irrigation system about every 30 years to save water, the strategy of wetting agents and growth regulators, that one’s not really being utilized to the extent that it can be,” Whitlark said.
Advances are also being made in the grasses being used to carpet desert courses. At UC Riverside, the turfgrass science department is developing Bermuda grasses that could stay green in both summer and winter in the desert. That would reduce the need for overseeding, the process of converting from warm-weather Bermuda grass to cool-weather grasses like rye grass. Even changing from old types of Bermuda to new hybrid Bermuda grasses can save water, said Dr. Jim Baird of UCR.
The Coachella branch of the All-American Canal flows through the Golf Club at Terra Lago in Indio, California. (Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)
“The savings would be in the 30-percent range, realistically, but is that enough to do this?” said Baird, a turfgrass specialist for UCR. “As we mentioned, renovating from one Bermuda grass to another Bermuda grass is no easy measure. Because one thing I know about Bermuda grass is it is hard to kill. So that said, I think we certainly will do our best in that regard to make some strides.”
River, recycled water important
The source of irrigation water is always a concern for desert courses, especially in light of the ongoing negotiations over the Colorado River and historic low levels in Lake Mead in Nevada, said Scott Burritt, director of service and communications for CVWD.
“The golf courses have a strong interest in conserving water because that’s part of their bottom line,” Burritt said. “It can be a major expense, so they have an interest in conserving water, and there are a lot of discussions about what different golf courses are doing.”
Thirty-six Coachella Valley courses use strictly Colorado River water for irrigation, while another 17 ½ courses (a course is considered to be 18 holes) use a blend of river water and recycled water from CVWD. Other courses use ground water from the aquifer beneath the desert, with Burritt saying CVWD replenishes more than 40,000 acre feet of water to the aquifer each year.
Plans for switching another 40 ½ courses to non-potable water are underway, though many of those courses need pipes extended from the two CVWD recycling plants to reach the courses before switching over. Burritt said current street work in Palm Desert is designed to take more recycled water to big landscape customers like golf courses.
But Burritt points out that recycled water’s drawback is that in the summer, when courses need more water to fight high temperatures, the desert has less recycled water available because fewer people are in the desert to take showers or flush toilets.
Turf reduction could be key
Another strategy for reducing water is simply reducing the amount of turf being irrigated. In the last seven years, CVWD reports more than 160 acres of turf, or the equivalent of nearly two average golf courses, have been removed at desert courses, but convincing golf courses to reduce turf and replace it with drought-tolerant native plants and desert landscaping can be difficult.
“You don’t just remove turf and you are done with it,” said Chris Bien, head agronomist at the city-owned Desert Willow Golf Resort in Palm Desert. “There is a cost involved with (removing) it. There is a cost involved with maintaining it, and that sometimes gets shoved under the rug.”
Whitlark and superintendents in the desert say removing an acre of turf can cost $20,000, including putting in new irrigation systems and planting drought-tolerant plants in place of grass. At one time CVWD offered a rebate of $15,000 to golf courses for each acre of turf removed, up to seven acres per course. But money for the project ran out, and Burritt said the agency is always looking for more grant money for such programs.
While the return on the investment of reducing turf may not be immediate for golf courses, Truman hopes more courses make changes.
“What I am seeing is that the newer people that we have, the younger generations that are moving into our facilities, a lot of them are okay with the desertscape popping up in (golf) areas,” Truman said. “You are getting people who are understanding hey, we need to do this. The older generation likes that parkland setting where everything is green and lush. So I think just like everything, the younger generation is more open to it.”
Removing turf is also something that impacts course homeowners, Bien said. Desert Willow has two courses, the Mountain View and the Firecliff, totaling about 150 acres and including acres of desertscape on both courses.
“It’s a property-to-property thing, though, because you run into a danger of are there homeowners next to your golf course,” Bien said. “That is their backyard and they want the green backyard, and there are property values and the like to think about. For here (at Desert Willow), we don’t really have homes on Desert Willow, which is great.”
Whitlark said repeating the message of turf reduction is important, with Arizona golf courses often having just 70 to 80 acres of turf compared to courses in the Coachella Valley that often have between 100 to 120 acres of grass. The message isn’t always popular but needs to be pushed, he said, pointing to a course in Sun City, Arizona, he has been working with for 15 years.
“My very first visit, they almost shoved me out of the room,” Whitlark said. “But every year, I just kept saying it, turf reduction, turf reduction. Finally they realized they need to make some changes because they saw the writing on the wall.”
Cutting back expectations
Part of the problem for golf courses in the desert, particularly private ones, is that the area has a reputation for perfectly manicured and green golf courses in the winter. Those are two factors that lure snowbirds to the area for months at a time.
“That’s tough. It’s just such a long history of having that oasis out there in the wintertime,” said Baird. “That’s going to be tough.”
Overseeding, the planting of cool-weather grasses to keep courses green in the winter, is still needed because Bermuda grass can go dormant and brown in the winter, when part-time residents and tourists spend their time in the area.
“From October to May is so important as the prime revenue season,” Whitlark said. “Overseeding is still going to be important for now and probably not something that courses can consider reducing.”
Some golf visitors to the desert don’t want to see a change in what they view as a key element of the appeal of desert courses: a lush, green carpet of grass. Doug Evans of Oklahoma City, who was recently playing golf in the desert with two of his friends after not visiting for a few years, said he loved the conditions at Marriott’s Desert Springs on a hot afternoon.
“The course is beautiful. But if the golf course was not in as good a shape or was brown, what would be the point of being here?” said Evans, who spent his summer golf vacation last year in Arizona.
Other golfers understand the drought might cause needed changes.
The Firecliff Course at Desert Willow Golf Resort in Palm Desert, California. (Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)
“You can walk around any golf course and see areas where there is grass where no one is going to hit a golf ball,” said David Barnett of Mission Viejo, California. “So why not take the grass away. It is the desert, so let it be the desert. We save water all the time in Orange County. The desert should, too.”
Bien says expectations have to change based on the golf course and its clientele.
“There are different levels of managing expectations. I want to have a firm, fast golf course,” Bien said. “People get better playability out of a firmer, faster golf course. Does that mean that I’m okay having the golf course brown? No, it does not. Does that mean I’m okay with having a brown spot here or there? Absolutely.”
Looking to the future
Truman said talk of river water cutbacks have to be a concern for desert courses.
“California has a lot of water rights, but who’s to say if this federal government doesn’t step in and renegotiate all of those rights?” Truman said. “I know CVWD will do everything to protect our water. Hopefully, we can keep those things. But I look at people who need water and we need to manage our water the best possible way that we can.”
Whitlark says with a focus on water reduction for golf courses, mandatory cuts might be in the future.
“It is probably going to take a regulatory body to say, hey, I don’t care how you reduce the water use, but you are going to have to reduce the water use by 20 or 30 percent,” Whitlark said. “It is probably going to take that. Either that or water costs are going to have to go through the roof. Now many of those courses use canal water, which comes from the Colorado River, so I imagine they are going to feel some impact from the Bureau of Reclamation.”
For Kessler, keeping the regulatory agencies and state government out of the decision process is important, but so is assuring the future of golf and courses.
“What is the point of living in the great southwest in Southern California or Arizona or Nevada, where you can literally play golf 365 days a year, if we can’t continue to provide golf,” Kessler said.
