La Florida, Magdalena Bay

You know that a day it is going to be good when you can hear whales’ exhalations around you before daylight; the sand dunes and mangrove patches around the National Geographic Sea Bird provided the perfect setting for an unforgettable day. The area known as La Florida, located a few miles south of the fishing village of Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos in the northern reaches of Magdalena Bay, is a place favored by whales and today it proved itself true to its fame.

Shortly after breakfast we started the first of four rounds of Zodiac cruises, looking for a creature that has been given numerous names over time, from the “devil-fish” of the whalers to Jaques Cousteau’s “desert whale” and the “ballena gris” of the locals. Grey whales migrate from the Bering Sea into three coastal lagoons on the Pacific side of the Baja California peninsula, including Magdalena Bay, to mate and give birth to their young. We soon encountered numerous whales slowly swimming around, “logging” at the surface or raising their heads above the surface in an intriguing posture known as “spy-hoping.”

Many of the adult females had their weeks-old babies with them and graciously allowed us to get close and personal views of them. Whales are individuals and each has its own personality, something that is more easily observed in the young babies: some are shy and stay close to mom, whereas others are more curious and venture a bit further away from their ever-patient mothers. There is something that they all have in common, though: a never-ending desire to climb on top of their moms, a trait that they share with young mammals of all species, both marine and terrestrial.

We all enjoyed a marvelous day full of grey whales with many close encounters: some of us even got the chance to take underwater pictures of the whales by just lowering waterproof cameras from the Zodiacs! A day of whales, dunes and excellent weather. The kind of day that I live for.