By: Sophie Spickard
Dana’s annual Marine Ecology field study to Baja California’s Bahia de las Animas has returned once again. During Spring Break from April 4-12, approximately 56 AP Marine students and a group of chaperones hopped into cars to caravan 15 hours down to camp where they were able to see their studies come to life.
Throughout the school year, students learned all about the different marine ecosystems and animals living down in Baja and were able to apply all of their knowledge throughout the week. Students went out with their study groups every morning to a different habitat and recorded what they saw. The studies included mangroves, mud flats, rocky intertidal, sandy beach, and the reef study. On the popular reef study day, students hopped on boats to dive with sea lions, snorkel around the reef, and go fishing. Senior Jace Eaton shared his highlight: “My favorite part of the trip was the sea lions, there were like twenty-five of them. They all circled around me and they were like five feet apart; it was super fun.”
Marine ecology teacher Randy Hudson has been leading this trip for twenty-two years, and he shared that “This year was very special because I’ve had all three of my kids go through the program. This was Grant’s year and this will probably be the last year I get to have all my family be on the trip with me.” Hudson’s daughters Ashley and Malia were group leaders as well.
After everyone was done with their daily studies, students had the rest of the day to enjoy the beach and hangout–playing card games and paddleboarding until the sun went down. Students also had fun playing Spikeball and volleyball on the sand.
Each night after dinner, everyone gathered around the campfire to play songs, perform skits, and tell stories about their day.
Hudson noted that campfires were especially good this year because “a lot of people were very talented at playing guitar, so we had a wide assortment of music being played.”
Each day, a different study group was in charge of cooking, which included egg muffins, sandwiches, tacos, burritos, and lots of fish caught by students themselves.
“Fishing was really good. We had everything from yellowtail to white sea bass to gulf groupers and halibut. This made food really good this year, and one night we even had yellowtail sashimi” Hudson added.
Hudson also shared that this year “the weather was really good. We had wind the first day, but the weather this year was warm and the water was unseasonably warm. That allowed us to see a lot more organisms, and whales were a lot more active this year.”
This year, there were about 100 people going down in 24 cars. The cost of the trip was $1,215 per person.
Baja 2026 was overall a week full of unforgettable memories and a reminder that “you only see what you know,” as Mr. Hudson says.