The Sea of Cortez is almost silent and blanketed in darkness. As I shake off this morning’s early start, the star-filled sky slowly begins to disappear into warm shades of red and orange emanating from below the horizon. Soon the sun will rise, illuminating Baja’s signature landscape and bringing the stage before us to life. Local fishermen are the first to enter the scene, diligently unloading their pangas from trailers into the water as they prepare to start another day’s hard work. As they load a net into their boat, we exchange morning greetings and I can’t help but to be reminded of a video I received a few days prior. A painful clip of illegally caught mobula rays being chopped apart and filleted on a beach not too far from where I currently stand. But the fishermen here are not the problem – if anything they are an integral part to a much-needed solution.

We start our journey down the coast over a glass-like sea. As the sun lifts higher into the sky, its rays signal the start of a dawn chorus unlike anything else on Earth. The first ray launches from the ocean and splashes down with a slap. Then within seconds, more and more break the surface in all directions, until we are unsure where to look. From the boat, schools of hundreds, or even thousands, can be seen gliding slowly just beneath us. But, quietly slipping into the water gives you front row seats to this incredible spectacle of nature. It is a show I still struggle to describe, no matter how many times I bear witness to it.

It’s a choreographed dance created by thousands of devil rays, comparable to gigantic flocks of elegant birds soaring peacefully in unison through beams of dawn light. At first, the school of rays is cautious of this strange creature swimming alongside them but soon they begin to accept me as one of their own, inviting me to soar along with them. The school moves with such grace and beauty that it creates a feeling of Zen within. It is a feeling that words and even images cannot seem to capture, no matter how hard we try. It is this feeling that inspired our work with them and the reason we are all here today.