Estuary Kayaking

 Today we went kayaking in the Morua estuary in Puerto Peñasco. Some of us had never kayaked before so it was a new experience. Learning to kayak wasn’t as difficult as I thought, and I’m very proud of myself for not falling into the water! An estuary is a body of water that is partially enclosed by land. This is an important area for animals to use to breed and hatch their young. The water is brackish, which means that it is salt water, but the salt water from the ocean is mixed with freshwater from a river that is flowing into it. We learned that this particular estuary that we were in no longer had the freshwater from the river flowing into it. The CEDO biologist told us that the river water dried up about 15 years ago and now the estuary has a very high salinity. The average salinity of the ocean is 35, while this particular estuary had a salinity of about 80. 

We stopped in the marshy part of the estuary and there were fiddler crabs EVERYWHERE on the shores. Fiddler crabs are a small species of crab and the male has one large claw and one small claw. I got to hold one of the fiddler crabs and was surprised that it stayed on my hand for a while. -Amber:)

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