Baja Whales 2013

Last weekend we drove to Guerrero Negro in Baja.  It's about 10.5 hours south of San Diego.  The entire population of Gray Whales breeds in three lagoons on the Pacific side of the Baja Penninsula (Laguna Ojo del Liebre, San Ignacio, and Magdalena Bay).  Laguna Ojo del Liebre is where we went. The whales begin to arrive in December and January, and by mid February most of the females have young calves.  The whales in this area are known to be curious about the boats in the bay and it is not uncommon to have whales approach the boats and they will even occasionally solicit pets from excited tourists.

On this trip we went out on two boat trips.  Different tour operators are licensed for different parts of the bay.  Our first trip was with Marios Tours and focused on the inlet area in the northern part of the bay.  It was an afternoon trip and the water was a bit bumpy.  The whales were not especially "friendly" that afternoon, but they made up for it by being extremely active.  We saw quite a few large adults breeching (see the photo below) and spy hopping.  Towards the end of the tour we did have one female and calf who approached the boat, but only for a little bit and it was time to head back to the docks.

Breeching adult

Fluke with blows in the background

For our second outing we went to the "whale watching camp" which was about 20 minutes off of the paved road south of Guerrero Negro.  What a great area!  This is where we will camp in future years.  From the building and campsites you can see whales and blows all over.  The area is also covered with birds...shorebirds galore, Brant geese and Surf Scoters.  I wished I'd brought my big camera lens, but 70mm was what I had to work with on this trip.  This trip was a morning trip and we only had 6 people in our boat.  The water was calm and the weather was perfect.  As we headed out we approached several whale/calf pairs who were still sleeping floating at the surface.  Looking around you could see 10-15 whales in any direction you looked.  In the photo below I count at least 9.

The whales were all just waking up and we had the bay to ourselves.  There was not as much breeching and spy hopping going on, but we struck gold with a friendly mom and calf who spent about an hour investigating our boat.  

Mom and calf

Young calf resting on mama

Mom

Quinn had a great time on both outings and was a serious trooper for our long car trip.  

We are going to try to make this an annual trip.  I recommend that anyone interested in wildlife make the trip south to see these amazing creatures up close.  I would also highly recommend going out with the group out of the whale camp.  The boat trip is not as long and the whales were amazingly friendly.  I was also pleased with how the boat operators respected the whales' space (I felt that on day one the boats followed them a bit too much).  

Mama with baby on her back

Baby whale playing around near our boat

 We also took a bunch of videos of the action.  I'll attach a couple of them here (if it'll work).  Really, this was an amazing experience!