La Paz in the evening is like a soft summer dream: a gentle breeze, a lovely waterfront causeway, families strolling with ice cream cones, live music. We should linger, we should send for our womenfolk, but instead we hire a boat and turn our backs on the mainland. Isla Espiritu Santo, the island of the Holy Spirit adrift in the Bahia de La Paz, greets us with open arms, and we slide between them into calm and sheltered bays, each empty but for cactus sentinels and silent rocks.

Although we see only a handful of others, people travel from all over the globe to paddle the changing waters of Espiritu Santo. Indeed, the Sea of Cortes’s lustrous blue, La Paz’s civilized community, the nearby international airport, and a well-developed outfitter infrastructure make the region one of Mexico’s premier adventure-travel destinations. For me, and maybe for the majority who come, it’s worth the journey just to sit in the Baja Expeditions camp under starlight and eat ceviche made from octopus taken right off the reef, but the kayaking is something else, too. We float on molten glass, slip through keyhole caves, and drift past soaring cliffs as we circumnavigate Isla Partida, Espiritu Santo’s northern satellite.

I pronounce the kayaking our high point so far, but its ascendancy doesn’t last long. We paddle to Los Islotes, a trio of rocky islets where the southernmost population of California sea lions raises its young. Donning snorkeling gear, we slip out of the boats into the cool shadowed water. It’s dark, moody, and a little freaky as sea lions zoom by us on reconnaissance, black missiles caught in the corner of the eye, but the more I see them the more comfortable I feel. By the time we stumble upon an underwater cave that serves as a sea-lion playground, I’ve lost most of my fear of being bit, bumped, or dragged under and held hostage for a bucket of fish.

The cave is thick with pups, most just three months old and about the size of small Labrador retrievers. When we first arrive, they are shy, black shapes peering out from the cave, but our guide Kim mirrors their movements, hanging upside down, keeping arms and legs close to her body, and soon they venture out and grow bolder.

A female, gray on top, brown underneath, swims to David. She is 200 pounds and six feet long, and she gets right up to his face. I come in close, and she turns to me, her whiskers tickling my cheek, her nose almost touching mine. Her eyes, just inches away, are huge brown globes. Her fur is soft, sleek, her ears tiny. A wavelet carries our heads above water, and I feel her sniff my hair.

Her pups get jealous and snuffle between us, but she chases them away. We’re hers.

The puppies dive to the bottom 20 feet below. They wrestle each other like dogs, chew on each other’s flippers, and chase their own tails. They blow bubbles, then race them skyward and bite them before they reach the surface. They blow bubbles beneath us, too, and the feeling of puppy breath tickling my chest makes me shiver from something I can’t begin to describe. One little guy sends aloft a giant bubble, and, as it rises toward me and I reach out my hand to catch it, I spy my own reflection in its curving mirror–the giant hand, the floating body, the silver surface–and past it, through the bubble, I see the sweet brown eyes of the sea lion looking up at me.

I never, ever want to leave.

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