Handling a Whale Calf in Baja

On a whale watching excursion in Magdalena Bay along the west coast of Baja California, I had the most exhilarating experience of touching the calf of a Gray Whale.

We headed out into the Bahia Magdalena from Port of San Carlos (about 300 miles north of Cabo) around 12:30pm on a late February Tuesday hoping to get "up close and personal" with the Pacific Gray Whales that breed in the bay and neighboring lagoons from January through March and are supposedly so abundant that you might trip over them. It was billed as a once-in-a-lifetime whale watching experience (2 to 2.5 hr trip for 1500 pesos for a party of 4 people).

We spent and an hour and half on the water and saw about ten Pacific Gray whales from afar. The small dingy boat of ours with no canopy or cover never got closer than 50 feet or so and even then we saw the whales surfacing for less than a minute to spout and then plunge back for a long dive. A pretty decent experience but nothing spectacular. We headed back little bit disappointed. The young Mexican boat skipper skimmed fast over the choppy waters as we were tossed around like bobbing corks - quiet a bone jarring experience. The sun beat down on us hard.

And then suddenly from nowhere on the starboard side a whale showed up about 200 feet away. First we saw the spout, and then a few seconds later it breached - the giant creature heaved itself up into the air and crashed into the water with a giant splash! We were so excited. I had never seen a whale breach. The skipper said, "One more" - and the whale breached again. Just incredible. The skipper turned the boat to get close to the whale. Very soon we were only 30 feet away as the whale, and then we noticed its calf, were playing on the surface of the water. And then they started getting closer to us. 20 feet. 10 feet. Right next to the boat. Under the tiny boat...

The mother and the calf then decided to just hang around and play with us. They turned and twisted around the boat, circled the boat, dove under the boat to surface on the other side. One time the mother went under the boat and the calf dove over her but still under the boat and came so close to the boat that I was able to touch the back of the calf - it was smooth like a baby's bottom, very soft like I was digging my hands through butter but the skin was very tight and shiny black with no barnacles... that was once-in-a-lifetime experience!!!

We got drenched in the spouts from the blowholes of the mother and the calf a few times. They must have swam and played with us for about 15 minutes when the skipper said we had to leave. As he started the engine and maneuvered the boat back towards the land the mother whale started following us. We stopped the boat 50 or so feet away and both the whales came over and continued with their horsing around. Some on the boat worried about capsizing but nothing of the sort happened. And then the whales were joined by sea lions who showed up just like that from nowhere. They jumped out into the air and dove ahead of and around the whales... It was a scene to behold - the joyous wildlife of Baja waters dancing around our boat. We were of course ecstatic. Absolutely Amazing!

P.S. All the pictures above and a short video below (shot with a digital camera) are gifts of friends on the boat. I was too busy jumping up and down to take any pics!

Below is the 25 second video of the bone crunching high speed boat ride where we had to hold on to whatever we could grab on (the sides, under the seat) and make sure we didn't go overboard. This part of the excursion was literally painful, leaving body aches in its wake for days to come.