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The Gray Whale Advocate Newsletter
January, 2001 edition.
Contents, both editorial and photographic are:
copyright 2001
Keith E. Jones
Hola amigos y amigas. Felice ano nuevo. I spent the New Years’ weekend in Baja. Went out with my friends at the ejido Benito Juarez on December 30th and saw my first gray whales of the season. The photo above is of a large female who approached very close to the side of our panga.
The weather was clear and calm. There was absolutely no wind and no waves. I saw several spouts in the distance while standing at the ticket booth talking with some friends. When I finally got the opportunity to get on a boat it was already 3:00 PM. We motored out to the nearest portion of the inner lagoon observation area and saw a solitary whales swimming slowly across our bow.
Abel (pronounced like uhh and then bell) our panga captain slowed and then stopped about 100 yards away. The large female turned toward us, then swam away. From her actions and from her awkward rolling progress I believe she was very close to giving birth. It seemed as if the weight of the unborn baby was pulling her aft section down as she porpoised through the water. We left her alone and continued further into the lagoon.
We saw the second panga ahead of us and headed in that direction. My long time friend, Luis, was the captain of the second panga. As we neared I saw that a mating trip was rolling and playing around Luis’ boat. We stopped again about 50 or 100 yards away. Abel put the motor in neutral and we just floated, watching the exciting action taking place so very close to the other boat.
After about 30 minutes, the frisky whales dived and stayed down for quite a while. When the trio finally surfaced, she was amazing close to our boat. They had come over to give us a look.
This was an amazing 90 minutes of whale watching activity. Many people ask me how many whales are in the lagoon in January. How many whales will we see? I always say that on any of our trip dates (after mid-January) there are hundreds up to possibly 2000. The thing is, I only saw a half a dozen whales while out on this 90 minute trip. But I could not possibly have had a more action packed trip. There were only two boats on this huge expanse of water. I know for certain that we didn’t disturb the whales nor interfere with their activities. They chose to surface and frolic near us. Then, we finally left because our time was up.
These images were captured using a small Olympus camedia digital camera.
That’s all for now.
Keith (baja) Jones
Baja Jones Adventure Travel
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