BAJA CALIFORNIA WHALE WATCHING

A phenomenal journey and deeply mystical experience!

(Please inquire about experiencing the whales)

As if for some ancient rite of the sea, we– men and women who love the earth, the sea, the wild creatures– gathered in San Diego on a 95’ boat, to travel south by sea to the home of the whale. The great gray whales migrate back to this place over a period of three months every year from their feeding grounds in the far north. They come to mate, to conceive and to give birth to the next generation of whales. We were on a pilgrimage to witness this great magic.

On March 20, the dawn of the day of perfect balance, the Equinox, our captain carefully navigated through the labyrinthine sand dunes at the entrance to San Ignacio Lagoon, off the Pacific Side of Baja California. A pod of dolphins greeted and escorted our boat into the bay. Gray whales were feeding and spy hopping around the entrance. We slowly rounded the lagoon and cast anchor in the home of the Gray Whales. We could see gray whale mothers and their young spouting and spy hopping all around. They were busy nursing, playing. The mothers were teaching their new calves to forage, swim and do the things whales do. The males had already headed north.

It wasn’t long before we were greeted by our Mexican guides and taken in their pongas, small, flat wooden boats, out into the lagoon. To our astonishment, the whales approached us. They would swim nearer and nearer. We waited, sitting still and they came to us. They wanted to look at us as much as we wanted to see them up close, even eye to great deep eye. A calf, only 25’ long, weighing a couple of tons and new to the world, came right up to us. The mother, about 50’ long, followed and going beneath the calf’s head lifted him up so we could see each other, so we could each in turn rub his nose before he slid back into the depths and around to the other side of the boat. The whales rolled and lounged about, exposing the ventral pleats on their undersides, luxuriating like cats rolling in the sunshine.

We touched them. We rubbed our fingers along their lips and nose, their rostrums. We even carefully kissed their dimpled, pickle like noses, complete with mammalian hairs, barnacles and orange whale lice. We scrambled from one side of the ponga to the other to greet them. There was perfect trust and pure joy.

Congratulations to the Mexican government for protecting this lagoon and to Mitsubishi for realizing this was not a place to put a polluting salt factory.

A mother whale, 60 or 70 feet long, approached our outstretched, wiggling fingers. She listened to our encouraging sweet talk, and then teasingly drew back when just inches from our fingertips. She let her baby be scratched again and again, watching carefully. Over and over, we repeated this ritual. When the mother whale decided there had been enough play, she gently, slowly moved between the calf and the boat. She finally let us touch her enormous 30+ ton whale body, all mottled in grays and whites, then led her young one off for more whale lessons. Usually the young whales followed their mother. One saucy youngster, the one we called ‘Twister’ had a very huge old barnacled mother and she had her ‘fins’ full with this rambunctious youngster who wanted to keep playing.

When they moved on, so did we and soon more whales approached us. Their personalities and actions varied. Some were more trusting than others. . The ocean was soft as a whisper, the sky clear and baby blue, the waters silvery blue. We had a totally magical adventure with the whales until we were all tired. There were up to six whales at one time at our boat.

We shuddered at the thought that these wild gentle giants might be pierced by a harpoon some day, by another human hand that would kill them and render them into oil.

So the two days at San Ignacio Lagoon went, bobbing about with whales, breathing with whales, gliding into glorious sunsets. Our boat was surrounded by whales. We could hear them breathing all around us in the stillness of night, under the stars and waxing moon. The water lapping gently at the boat was even magically phosphorescent.

Morning call: At sunrise, the captain announced,” Get your cameras and raincoats in case the weather changes, and get your suntan lotion and gear. The whales are waiting.” Indeed, several mothers and babies were waiting around the stern, playing with the skiffs, impatient for us to come out and play with them. They followed us in the pongas out into the bay. The babies frolicked and rode up onto their mother’s backs. One showed us how he could push water from his mouth through the baleen with his tongue. They seemed to delight in diving, then surfacing right beneath our faces that were peering over the edge, and giving us a great misty spray of salty sea and whale breath. The boats were very stable and did not tip when we all went to one side and stretched out as far as we could reach to touch the whales.

There was a baby whale who spins, a baby who uttered guttural noises and one that liked to show his talent at rushing water through his baleen. Others were sweet, curious and docile. The mothers encouraged or discouraged them. They seemed to prefer the pongas with the most women in them. They also preferred Chris, who works as a volunteer with stranded and injured ocean animals near San Francisco. So much magic!

As we prepared, reluctantly, to leave the lagoon, Captain Art announced that in his 25 years of coming to this place, he had never before been unable to engage the gears on his engine because there were too many whales under the boat.

Spring lunges in. The lofty nests and deep hidden places guard new beings. Everywhere is new life and the blessings of Great Mother.

(Please inquire if you are interested in experiencing the whales in Jan., Feb or March.)

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