Whale Watching in Baja, Mexico

David Lewis travelled on our 'Baja California & Sea of Cortez' holiday and submitted this entry to our Writing Competition.
My arms are browner than they were 10 days ago and there is a powdery dusting on one which is salt from trailing it in the sea as the skiff took us ashore and then back to the ‘Spirit of Adventure’. The gentle rocking of the ship has replaced the more vigorous rolling swell of yesterday. The engines stopped during the night and were replaced by the softer ‘chur’ of the generators as we reached this anchorage at Punta Colorado in the Sea of Cortez off the Baja Peninsula. The sun is warm and now shines yellow from a pale blue, faintly hazy sky but only a few hours ago at sunrise it bathed us at first in petal pink and then flamed gloriously to turn the horizon’s clouds crimson and throw the ship’s blue shadow onto the cliffs 60 metres away. The cliffs themselves are red sandstone laid in horizontal layers over millions of years but in my ‘one day in a lifetime’ here I like to think they can surely never have looked more dramatic.
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Baja California
What time is it? Still only 9.30 in the morning. Already we have enjoyed another hearty breakfast, been ashore and walked along a seasonal river bed, now dry and dusty, enjoyed a variety of wildlife, seen five million year old whale and turtle fossils that remind us just who really does own this planet, and watched as Ballyhoo Fish skidding across the sea’s surface trying to escape attack from Bottlenose Dolphins from below and Brown Pelican diving from above; and all just 20 yards from us.


This is our last full day on board. Tomorrow I need to reawaken that part of my brain that deals with passports, departure times, money, packing; but not yet, not today.
But ‘last days’ are when you begin to think of all the experiences that the journey has given you. The thrill of a Blue Whale just in front of the ship, blowing six times and then deep-diving with raised fluke to reappear eight minutes later with that explosive rush of vertical blown moist air and a sound that won’t be on the photograph but hopefully will stay in my mind. The captain tracked it on sonar as it dived, and manoeuvred us so that when it resurfaced it was still just yards ahead. We followed it for two hours and each time it surfaced the whale’s sound was matched by our much quieter gasps of amazement. We never stopped gasping in astonishment each time. But we saw many Blue as well as Minke, Fin, Sei, Humpback, Bryde’s and Dwarf Sperm Whales, and the crew got us close to all of them as the whales carried on their lives without paying the slightest attention to us.This is our last full day on board. Tomorrow I need to reawaken that part of my brain that deals with passports, departure times, money, packing; but not yet, not today.
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Long-beaked Common Dolphins
In San Ignacio Lagoon when a 40 tonne whale and its calf approach you and they nudge your skiff gently to one side, and surface touching the side, you cannot fail to repay the greeting by touching and patting it as you would do to a neighbour’s friendly dog - purely magical moments in an extraordinary place where we spent two days and Grey Whales were never out of sight.


The sun is still warm as I sit on deck, coffee cup in hand. Our three skiffs have been winched back onboard and I will sit in the stern for a little longer enjoying my thoughts. The dolphins have been good: Long-beaked Common and then Bottlenose. We got excited when the first few came to ride our bow wave; little did we know that schools of 500 or more would delight us later. Then Pacific White-sided Dolphins appeared to keep us on our toes checking the identity of them all, taking nothing for granted.
The birds have been exciting too. Many of the Murrelets, Auklets, Shearwaters and Petrels were new for me, but perhaps a special moment was when we watched a Fin Whale feeding one evening and a Laysan Albatross came distantly out of a golden sunset circled close to the ship and headed away ending a glorious day.


It is difficult for a naturalist (of sorts) to not relate lists of species to describe the experience and even more difficult for a birdwatcher not to have mentioned all the sea and land birds, but the lists have been written and together with the photos will make my record for years to come.


But if you go, and you should, it will be the whole experience that amazes you. Privileged views of nature in a very special place provided by a brilliant, helpful and knowledgeable crew and shared with happy like-minded passengers who say ‘Best holiday ever. Thank you, Naturetrek.’ 
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Laysan Albatross
Read more about our 14-day 'Baja California & Sea of Cortez' holiday.