After a relaxing night at anchor on the National Geographic Sea Bird at the northern end of Magdalena Island, in the boca (the mouth) of the bay, eager whale watchers rose before the first golden rays of light illuminated the blows of the California gray whales.
With the approaching spring tide of the new moon, mother gray whales are making final preparations for the 5,000-mile swim north to the feeding grounds of the Bering, Chukchi, and western Beaufort Seas. With the wind freshening against the outgoing tide, mother whales took the opportunity to challenge the swimming abilities of their calves. As veteran whale watching guest Bill Klipp said, “After yesterday’s close encounters in calm waters everything else today is a bonus.” So into the rolling seas we followed mothers with their calves.
In the stacked and breaking surf, gray whale calves breached, head lunged, and literally rubbed against pitching expedition landing craft full of excited, albeit soaking wet whale watchers. Time and again, exuberant calves splashed us as they surfed and punched through the waves all around us.
Watching whales in such confused seas could not be more different than yesterday’s curious calves approaching us in calm waters. It was real rock-n-roll baby!
Once again safely back aboard, we weighed anchor and slowly turned and navigated south thru Hull Canal and eventually out thru the entrada and into the open Pacific Ocean. A gentle following sea pushed us towards Land’s End at the tip of the Baja Peninsula and our adventures of tomorrow.
