Revillagigedo Islands
— — the open ocean's quiet edge.
Not only on a wall.
“A four-island volcanic archipelago in the eastern Pacific, roughly 390 kilometres south-southwest of the tip of Baja California. Socorro, San Benedicto, Roca Partida, and Clarión sit alone in deep water; the nearest port is Cabo San Lucas, about twenty-four hours by boat. The marine area around them became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016 and the largest fully protected marine reserve in North America in 2017.
Revillagigedo Islands, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Revillagigedo Archipelago lies in the eastern Pacific Ocean about 390 kilometres southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, administered as part of Mexico's Colima state. The four islands (Socorro, San Benedicto, Roca Partida, and Clarión) are volcanic, with Socorro the largest at roughly 132 square kilometres and rising to 1,050 metres at Mount Evermann. UNESCO inscribed the surrounding waters as a World Heritage Site in 2016, and Mexico declared 148,000 square kilometres around the islands a no-take marine reserve in 2017.
The surrounding sea is the reason most people know the name. Giant Pacific manta rays with wingspans approaching seven metres approach divers at the cleaning stations off San Benedicto and Roca Partida. Humpback whales calve in these waters from January to April. Schools of scalloped hammerheads, silky sharks, silvertips, bottlenose dolphins, and yellowfin tuna pass through. The 148,000-square-kilometre reserve created in 2017 closed all extractive fishing inside the boundary, an area roughly the size of Switzerland and Belgium combined.
There is no scheduled tourist access. Permitted liveaboard dive boats sail from Cabo San Lucas on roughly nine-day itineraries between November and May, when seas are calmest. The crossing takes about twenty-four hours each way. The Mexican Navy maintains a small garrison on Socorro; otherwise the islands are uninhabited. Landings are restricted to permit-holding scientific expeditions. Most divers experience the archipelago from the water around the volcanic rocks, never setting foot on land.