I think today was the highlight of our trip in everyone's mind. We broke up into two groups today, the first 18 left at 8:00 for the whale boats and the rest of us met them at 11:30 when they returned.Because of low water and the late part of the season we loaded into 22 foot open boats and traveled about 15 miles out past the inlet into the open sea with about 4-6 foot swells, which is an experience in itself! We were out in the open sea for about 45 minutes when we spotted the first whale blow. It took another 30 minutes for our driver to finally get us in the midst of several mothers and their calves.
The young whales are intensely curious and start by checking out the boats from a distance but it does not take long for them to approach the boats under the watchful eyes of their mothers.
They come up to the boats and wait to be touched and then start to play.
We got drenched several times and also watched them dive under the boats. (Remember-22 feet!)
As the other boats, including the rest of our afternoon group got closer the calves would pass from one boat to the next waiting to be touched and to splash everyone in sight.
The photo of the calf out of the water was one of several, it happened to be the one Jeff caught on camera.
In the meantime the mothers are nearby keeping an eye on everything as their young ones play. The size of the adults is really breathtaking when they come up alongside those little boats! After a bit one mother would herd her calf away and another would take its place. We were out there three hours but it seemed like minutes with the whales all about.We also got to circle a buoy full of seals on the way back in.
Our boat had the final excitement of the day when we ran out of gasolina a few minutes from the dock on the way back in.
Even though Jack offered to row us in another boat came to the rescue with more fuel. You can see all the sympathetic faces waiting for us at the shore!
Happy hour was spent remembering the great times and discussing our long drive up the Baja tomorrow. We will make a brief stop tomorrow night at Vincente Gurrero and then continue on to Ensenada for three days.
