By Andomeda Romano-Lax

Among the two dozen tidepooling stations they visited in the Sea of Cortez, Pulmo Reef was among John Steinbeck's and Ed Ricketts's favorites. They anchored a mile away and then rowed to the reef, which is really a series of eight hard coral fingers scattered throughout the sparkling, sand-bottomed bay. As the tide went down, parts of the reef's flat pockmarked surface were gradually exposed, allowing them to walk on its encrusted surface, filling their collecting buckets and tubes and jars.

Today, walking atop a coral reef is unthinkable. We did not waste time lambasting Steinbeck and Ricketts, since pulling apart bits of reef was on par with collecting methods of their time. But we knew that we could not re-create this aspect of their Cortez experience. In fact, in many ways, our Pulmo experience would be better than theirs, thanks to technology that missed them by just a few years: the post-War refinement of the common mask and snorkel.

Tentatively, I slid into the water, promising myself I'd snorkel for just a minute or two, not more than a few feet from the boat, where my two-year-old daughter and guide awaited me. But that was like saying one could slip into New York's wildest dance club and emerge before even the first song was over. Beneath the blood-warm and wind-stirred water, a psychedelic party was underway, complete with disco-ball glitter. Colors flashed. Fins whirred. Surf broke against submerged rock, releasing clouds of bubbles. Needles of light flashed just under the surface. I steadied myself in time to realize that a passing quicksilver sheet, so close to the water's mirrored ceiling that it looked like the ceiling itself, was actually a small school of inch-long juvenile swordfish, perfect miniatures of their predatory parents.

I've been asked frequently to name my favorite place in the Sea of Cortez: Cabo Pulmo, the Cortez's only coral reef? The kayaker's dream coast, between La Paz and Loreto? Or the scorched, otherworldly gulf delta? But the question shouldn't really be where, but instead, how deep? Crouching, wading, or swimming anywhere in the Sea of Cortez, at a depth from 12 inches to 12 feet, a visitor will not be disappointed. Baja's tidepools and rock reefs remain astonishingly rich along most of the peninsula's length.

Andromeda Romano-Lax, with her husband, two young children and a recalcitrant brother-in-law, retraced Steinbeck and Rickett's much-loved Log From the Sea of Cortez. The reef at Cabo Pulmo, about halfway between San Jose del Cabo and La Paz, was designated a national park in 1995.

Andomeda Romano-Lax