Whale Watching 1

http://www.bajajonesadventures.com 562) 889-4016 Whale watching around the world and in Baja california. Baja Jones is the only sponsor of this, the world's largest gray whale information website. Join Keith (Baja) Jones on a whale watching trip. Rub noses with a friendly whale!

Keith (Baja) Jones is an avid writer about Baja travel and about gray whales. Every winter you will find him in Baja, somewhere near the Gray Whales. As the founder of Baja Jones Adventurers, Jones Adventures, Tigress Tours in Thailand and Butanding Tours in the Philippine Islands, he has led thousands of people to Mexico and other interesting locations around the world.


Since 1992 Baja Jones has logged over 3000 hours observing the whales of Baja, while sitting in pangas, on the various lagoons and ocean waters of Baja California, Mexico. Keith has also logged more than 100,000 miles driving the Baja Highway #1 and the many side roads along the way. We believe our leader is the most knowledgeable person currently working as a gray whale watching guide in Mexico.

His writing and photos have been published in a dozen countries and scores of magazines, newspapers and websites. He corresponds with hundreds of writers, environmental activists, biologists, researchers, scientists, students and other whale enthusiasts each year. Each issue of our newsletter is read by several thousand people. Keith recently wrote the Gray whale section for the "Lonely Planets Guide to Cabo and Baja" and the Baja Desert section for The Sanford Travel Guide

Whale Watching Trip With Baja Jones Adventures

This is a trip description written by a happy Baja Jones Adventures whale watcher. President's Day Weekend Whale watching trip with Baja Jones Adventures.

We had to be awake and at the van at 4:30 am to leave from San Diego for our whale watching tour to Baja, Mexico. The driver said we leave this early to avoid the traffic in

San Diego and Ensenada as we drive south. The drive was long, but interesting. Our lunch stop included an interesting cave painting site located high on the side of a

mountain.

Our first full day in Mexico began with breakfast at a small local café called Puerto Viejo (The old Port). Our group of 8 met for breakfast at 7:00 AM. Everyone was excited. I was bubbling with energy as we enjoyed Spanish omelets, tortillas and hot cakes.

I left the restaurant and walked to the van that would carry us to the Bay. I noticed heavy fog surrounding the town. I wondered if we could whale watch with fog like that. Maybe I said something out loud, because Baja Jones (Keith to all of us) spoke up and said that fog is a good thing. He explained that fog meant there would be no wind. The fog would be gone by the time we loaded into the boats and because there would be no wind, it would be warm and a very nice day. This forecast proved to be quite accurate. We arrived at the boat embarkation point, a place called Punta Mariscal, at around 8:30 AM. There we received life jackets and clambered onboard the waiting fiberglass launch. Once everyone was seated the boat driver quickly backed away from the dock

and headed slowly from shore.

Even before arriving at the Area #3 whale watching zone we could see dozens of whale spouts from inside the van. Once we stopped and were all outside the van we could even see some whales who raised up out of the water in an act called spy hopping.

Loading into the boats is an interesting experience here. There is no dock. Only a shallow sloping muddy seashore. We loaded into the back of an old blue pickup truck and then the driver drove out into the water where the boat captain was standing in knee deep water, holding the boat steady.

We stepped from the tailgate of the pickup truck onto a seat in the boat. As soon as all of us were onboard, the captain pushed the bow toward the whales, and climbed into

the boat himself.

Then we slowly motored away from shore, as our boat driver carefully found a channel through the mudflats. Within 5 minutes we were in deeper water and surrounded by

blowing whales.

At first we shouted and pointed at every whale spout. But soon we stopped because there were so many it quickly became “normal” to see a whale swim up from below and blow a spray of water 10 or 20 meters from our craft.

The day progressed with continued whale spouts and an occasional jumping whale. We enjoyed this experience for about 45 minutes. Somebody later said they thought themorning started slowly. They thought maybe the entire trip would be just like that.

But this all changed in just moments, when a huge gray whale slowly moved toward our boat. Keith saw the whale coming to our right side and said that this whale was going to come closer. It continued to approach, then sank beneath the water and swam under our boat. The whale was longer than our boat by almost twice. She was also wider than our boat and we could look over the left or the right side and see her floating directly below us. Her back never touched the boat, but it was almost frightening to me.

I think Keith grew excited by this because suddenly he leaned way over the side and plunged his arm down into the water. His arm and his blue jacket sleeve disappeared beneath the water, almost to his armpit. After a moment he threw his arm up and as water poured from his jacket he shouted something. Telling us all that he had touched the whale underwater. This started a rush, as all 8 of us pushed to the one side of the boat. The boat tipped up on it's side as if it would roll over. Keith moved to the opposite side and told us it was okay to try and pet that whale.

For another hour, that seemed like only 5 minutes we took turns touching, rubbing and even kissing this wonderful animal. After an experience like that how could we possible do better? Keith insisted we should think about this as a great individual experience. He said we should not try to compare it to tomorrow because we could have a different, but equally as great experience tomorrow.

I'm going to bed now. It's 9:00 pm. The sun and water tired me out. I'll surely dream of some jumping whales tonight.

Laura Soleil

Writing from Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Scammon's Lagoon)

Baja California Sur, Mexico

February 12, 2010

Final Baja Jones Winter Whale Season Report 2012

Here is the final Baja Jones Winter Whale Season report for the 2012 season:

Hi everyone, the gray whale migration this year was terrific for those of us whale watching at the Baja nursery lagoons.  Every one of the three bays had hundreds to thousands of whales present inside the lagoons.  

For those of you who don't know, there are three protected bays or lagoons on the West Coast of Baja California, Mexico where the Gray whales migrate to each year from the cold Arctic water of the Bering Sea.  While not all the whales go inside the lagoons, normally about 10 to 15% of the gray whale population does go inside the lagoons each year; to give birth or to mate or perhaps just to rest before beginning the long swim north.

This year there were more than 750 baby whales inside Laguna Ojo de Liebre the northernmost of the gray whale lagoons and located on latitude 28.  Laguna Ojo de Liebre is a large bay with lots of shallow water, but a few deep channels and holes.  The whales like to swim in the currents that flow in the deeper channels as the tide flows in or out of the bay.

San Ignacio Lagoon had a couple hundred baby whales this season.  San Ignacio lagoon is the location that most magazines and newspapers choose to write stories about.  It is the middle lagoon in location and the smallest in size.

Magdalena Bay also had a couple hundred baby whales this year.  Magdalena Bay is the most southern of the 3 lagoons.  Because of this the weather is usually a little bit warmer and in general nicer than at the other two locations.  This is the nearest lagoon to La Paz and to Cabo San Lucas.

Between the three lagoons there were more than 1,000 confirmed baby gray whale births this year.  This is a large number almost double the "average" number of counted baby whale births.  

What I noticed this year was that there seemed to be fewer adult whales inside the lagoon engaged in mating activity.  It will be interesting to see what the baby whale count is next year.  Perhaps a lot of mating activity took place outside in the open ocean, rather than inside the protected lagoons as it usually does.

That concludes my report for the end of the 2012 season.  Until next year enjoy good whale watching wherever you may go.

Keith Jones

Baja Jones Adventure Travel

www.greywhale.com

www.jonesadventures.com

office phone in USA: 562-889-4016

email: keith@greywhale.com

Skype ID: bajajones

Yahoo messenger ID: rowman1998@yahoo.com

Baby Gray Whales: Know A Bit More About Them

I know all of you get excited when you think about baby graywhales. Or at least i think you are probably interested in knowing some things about the babies that you might not read anywhere else (except in my book).

                                                  This is a young baby whale - mouth open

Baby gray whales are usually born beginning around mid-December through late January.

•The chance for survival is greatly enhanced if their mother can arrive at one of the Baja California, west coast nursery lagoons before she gives birth.

Just what are the survival chances for those newborn gray whales? Scientists have only been able make guesses – call them educated guesses based upon a wide range of observations – but still only guesses at this point in time.

The most widely accepted view of survival rates for gray whale babies at the end of one year is perhaps 80% to 90 % survive the first year if they are born inside one of the 3 major nursery lagoons.

That statistic flip-flops and is likely to be only a 10% to 20% survival rate for those unfortunate baby gray whales that are born in the open ocean while the mother is in the process of migrating south. 

                                        This baby gray whale is relatively young, perhaps 2 weeks.

Notice the uniform dark gray color. As the baby ages he will quickly develop light colored scar tissue all over his body from rubbing constantly against his barnacle clad mother. Her barnacles leave surface scratches that turn a lighter gray color.

Another characteristic of the very young gray whale is the shape of his head. Notice there is a hump like shape to the upper head in silhouette. A shape sometimes reminds me of a Chinese pug nosed dog.

I can tell this baby is more than a week old because the pre-natal folds of skin that hang around a newborn baby whale’s face, reminiscent of the breed of dog known as Sharpei, have already filled out. He has grown into those deep folds that are only visible during the first week or so after birth.

Another telling characteristic in this photo is the lack of barnacles. All gray whales begin developing barnacle growth almost as soon as they are born. After 2 weeks the young barnacles are obvious to the naked eye. In this photo I cannot see any developing barnacles.

My guess is this photo is of a baby whale between 7 and 15 days old.

Blue Whale Trip in the Sea of Cortez, Loreto

Sea of Cortez, Loreto,

Baja California Sur, Mexico

Written by: Keith Jones

About the Author:

Keith Jones is the founder of Baja Jones Adventures, Jones Adventures, Tigress Tours in Thailand and Butanding Tours in the Philippine Islands and has led thousands of people to Mexico and other interesting locations around the world. He specializes in gray whale tour, blue whale tour, gray and blue whale combo tour, giant panda bear tour, walk a tiger tour, shark tour, African safari tour, African gorilla trek, arctic narwhal tour and Magdalena Bay whale watching tour. He also writes about Baja travel and gray whales. Keith Jones is the author of Gray Whales My Twenty Years of Discovery.

March 2, 2011

8:30 a.m.: We departed from the Loreto harbor dock after waiting 30 minutes for the Marine Park Ranger to arrive at his office to sell us the park admission bracelets.  There was no wind and the ocean was dead calm.  The air temperature was about 70 degrees. Counting myself our group size was 13.   The group consisted of two English

citizens from Wales, 6 Americans from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maine, a couple from Argentina and a couple from France.  I’m from Southern California. We used three boats today.  The boats can hold 5 or six passengers comfortably, with three sitting in formed in place seats and three seated on the raised rear deck that

serves as a bench seat.  Fernando, my Blue Whale expert who has studied Blue whales off of Loreto for 20 years, took the lead with Luis and Tito captaining the other boats.

8:40 a.m.:  We spotted a mother and baby finback whale.  We watched this pair for 30 minutes.  During this time they dived 5 times.  On two occasions, between dives they

approached close to our boat and once the baby swam directly beneath our boat. 9:00 a.m.:  Spotted 2 more individual finback whales, but we chose to continue to follow the mother and baby. 9:15 a.m.:  Spotted multiple blows and decided it was time to leave the mother/baby pair.  We next stayed 20 minutes with a trio of adult finbacks.

9:35 a.m.:  We saw dolphins in the distance and chose to leave the 3 finback whales to go play with dolphins.  This was a pod of 50 to 100 common dolphins.  There were

several pods of dolphins about this same size in this area and we moved amongst them for one hour, enjoying their bow riding antics.  In all perhaps 500 to 1,000 dolphins were around us during this time. 10:30 a.m.:  Our boat captain suggested we go further south, to the end of Isla Carmen in hopes we might find a blue whale.   Our group was so engrossed in

the activity around us that nobody had asked me where the Blue whales were hiding.

11:00 a.m.:  We arrived at the south end of Isla Carmen and sighted a blue whale.  We were able to stay with this blue whale for an hour.  It was feeding and pretty much

ignored us.  But each time it dived our group played the guessing game of deciding where it would surface.  The captain of the boat I was in, Tito, would motor to where we guessed and then we would float for 5 to 15 minutes.  This blue whale stayed on the surface 3 to 5 minutes between dives and would then dive and

stay down 5 to 15 minutes.  After an hour the Blue whale simply disappeared.

12:10 p.m.:  The other boats called to us that everyone on board was hungry.  They directed us to their location, since we had become separated when my boat went to play with the dolphins.

Trip log

Page three

12:20 p.m.:  As we motored to the small island for lunch, we spotted 2 more finback whales.  Tito stopped and we watched them for five minutes.  When they dived, we left and continued to the lunch rendezvous.

1:15 p.m.:  Lunch ended and we started back toward the Loreto dock.  From this southerly end of Isla Carmen it is ALWAYS a long and bumpy ride north to Loreto.  Today was a great weather day and the swells were small, so the ride was relatively smooth.

1:35 p.m.:  We stopped to observe a humpback whale that sadly had a blue fish net snarled around its tail.  This whale was shy and after 5 minutes we parted ways.

1:50 p.m.:  Spotted two adult finback whales traveling and hunting together.  We watched them for a couple dives, about 20 minutes total before continuing north to Loreto.

3:30 p.m.:  Arrived back at the harbor in Loreto.

Tally of cetacean sightings:

Blue whales – 1 adult

Finback whales -  11 finback whales (one baby)

Humpback whales – 1 adult

Common dolphins – multiple pods, perhaps 500 to 1,000 for the day.

In addition to the whales, we saw many birds that included Blue footed boobies, Frigates, both brown and white Pelicans and at least 20 other species.  Today we also saw several seals and sea lions.

Guide comment:  During the day we were almost always following and watching whales with virtually no search time.  We had a total of 30 minutes boat time after leaving the dolphins before we came across the Blue whale.  It would be almost impossible to have a more whale packed day out here on the Sea of Cortez.

The population of Blue Whales staying near Loreto is estimated to be 12 to 15 this year, a good number.  Fernando has managed to identify half of these from past photos.  The Finback whale population is estimated around 50.  No estimate for Humpback whales.  Two Bryde’s whales have been identified.

After a day like this, all I have to say is I LOVE MY JOB!

This is only a one day trip log because I am usually leading our gray whale watching trips in Laguna Ojo de Liebre while my lucky guides get to enjoy the warm and scenic Sea of Cortez whale watching scene.  I had a day without gray whales, so I was able to go out with this group of 13!  A lucky whale watching number.

Keith

I always think of a diving whale’s tail as “The whale is saying goodbye”.  Because when whale watching at Laguna Ojo de Liebre this always means they are submerging and going off somewhere else, usually away from our boat.

Whale Watching Trip With Baja Jones Adventures

This is a trip description written by a happy Baja Jones Adventures whale watcher.
President's Day Weekend Whale watching trip with Baja Jones Adventures.

We had to be awake and at the van at 4:30 am to leave from San Diego for our whale
watching tour to Baja, Mexico. The driver said we leave this early to avoid the traffic in
San Diego and Ensenada as we drive south. The drive was long, but interesting. Our
lunch stop included an interesting cave painting site located high on the side of a
mountain.

Our first full day in Mexico began with breakfast at a small local café called Puerto Viejo
(The old Port). Our group of 8 met for breakfast at 7:00 AM. Everyone was excited. I
was bubbling with energy as we enjoyed Spanish omelets, tortillas and hot cakes.

I left the restaurant and walked to the van that would carry us to the Bay. I noticed
heavy fog surrounding the town. I wondered if we could whale watch with fog like that.
Maybe I said something out loud, because Baja Jones (Keith to all of us) spoke up and
said that fog is a good thing. He explained that fog meant there would be no wind. The
fog would be gone by the time we loaded into the boats and because there would be no
wind, it would be warm and a very nice day. This forecast proved to be quite accurate.
We arrived at the boat embarkation point, a place called Punta Mariscal, at around 8:30
AM. There we received life jackets and clambered onboard the waiting fiberglass
launch. Once everyone was seated the boat driver quickly backed away from the dock
and headed slowly from shore.

Even before arriving at the Area #3 whale watching zone we could see dozens of whale
spouts from inside the van. Once we stopped and were all outside the van we could
even see some whales who raised up out of the water in an act called spy hopping.

Loading into the boats is an interesting experience here. There is no dock. Only a
shallow sloping muddy seashore. We loaded into the back of an old blue pickup truck
and then the driver drove out into the water where the boat captain was standing in
knee deep water, holding the boat steady.

We stepped from the tailgate of the pickup truck onto a seat in the boat. As soon as all
of us were onboard, the captain pushed the bow toward the whales, and climbed into
the boat himself.

Then we slowly motored away from shore, as our boat driver carefully found a channel
through the mudflats. Within 5 minutes we were in deeper water and surrounded by
blowing whales.

At first we shouted and pointed at every whale spout. But soon we stopped because
there were so many it quickly became “normal” to see a whale swim up from below and
blow a spray of water 10 or 20 meters from our craft.

The day progressed with continued whale spouts and an occasional jumping whale. We
enjoyed this experience for about 45 minutes. Somebody later said they thought the
morning started slowly. They thought maybe the entire trip would be just like that.

But this all changed in just moments, when a huge gray whale slowly moved toward our
boat. Keith saw the whale coming to our right side and said that this whale was going to
come closer. It continued to approach, then sank beneath the water and swam under
our boat. The whale was longer than our boat by almost twice. She was also wider
than our boat and we could look over the left or the right side and see her floating
directly below us. Her back never touched the boat, but it was almost frightening to me.

I think Keith grew excited by this because suddenly he leaned way over the side and
plunged his arm down into the water. His arm and his blue jacket sleeve disappeared
beneath the water, almost to his armpit. After a moment he threw his arm up and as
water poured from his jacket he shouted something. Telling us all that he had touched
the whale underwater. This started a rush, as all 8 of us pushed to the one side of the
boat. The boat tipped up on it's side as if it would roll over. Keith moved to the opposite
side and told us it was okay to try and pet that whale.

For another hour, that seemed like only 5 minutes we took turns touching, rubbing and
even kissing this wonderful animal. After an experience like that how could we possible
do better? Keith insisted we should think about this as a great individual experience.
He said we should not try to compare it to tomorrow because we could have a different,
but equally as great experience tomorrow.

I'm going to bed now. It's 9:00 pm. The sun and water tired me out. I'll surely dream
of some jumping whales tonight.

Laura Soleil
Writing from Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Scammon's Lagoon)
Baja California Sur, Mexico
February 12, 2010