This year we added a full
complement of whale watching trips originating at the La Paz and the Cabo
Airports and targeting gray whale watching in Magdalena Bay.
Our first trip of the season
to Mag Bay took place as one of the worst wind storms to hit the lower Baja
Peninsula in many years moved across Magdalena Bay. This gave our group rough
water, bumpy and very long boat rides to find the whales and in general made
their first two days of whale watching less than hoped for. Our third day of
whale watching was much improved as we moved to a smaller fingerlike element of
Magdalena Bay and had some excellent whale watching and the hoped for close
encounters our trips are so well known for..
Wind was the one element
that affected our entire season. We had several days of blue whale watching
where we were forced to cancel and change to gray whales at Mag Bay due to the
high winds. The blue whales were here in record numbers, but some days we struggled
to get to them.
Having said all this
negative stuff about the wind, I do believe that every group this year had some
very excellent whale watching encounters. The photo at the top of this newsletter
was taken this year and is of Calabaza, a frequently seen blue whale off the coast
of Loreto.
Our gray whale trips on the
ride down from San Diego continued to decline in popularity. It seems Americans
are less willing to sit in a van for 10 hours as we drive south. Our combination
gray and blue whale trips continue to gain in popularity, especially with our many
UK clients. This year about 40% of our guests traveled from the UK to see
whales with Baja Jones Adventures.
This year at Laguna Ojo de
Liebre was another banner year for baby whale births. After a friend passed me
a forecast by some researchers predicting this year might see a dramatic drop
in gray whale births, I was thrilled when the first census of the year proved that
prediction wrong. We had over 500 baby whales inside the lagoon this year.
Better yet for the 5th
straight year the whales stayed around longer than I have been used to. As I
write this newsletter article the date is April 5. 15 years ago, maybe there
would have been a dozen whales left inside Laguna Ojo de Liebre or San Ignacio
Lagoon. This year there are still hundreds of whales remaining right now and
these are the friendliest of the friendly whales.
The 9th census of the
season, performed March 15, still had a count of 343 baby whales and a total of
740 whales count at that time. To put this into some historic perspective a typical
average season has only 200 to 300 baby whales counted at the peak count.
So both blue whales and gray
whales had really excellent nearly record setting migration counts this past
season. I’m thrilled with this.
I am also curious to see
what next year brings. There was a noticeable decline in the number of mating
whale groups that I saw this year inside the lagoons. Will this convert to less
baby whales being born next year? Or did more mating take place out in the cooler
open Pacific Ocean just offshore of the lagoons?
Like the season ending TV
show teaser, you will have to come back next season to find out what happens.
But unlike TV, I can’t script this show. It is real, live action and reality at
its finest.
Thanks to all of you
whale lovers,
Happy Whale Watching
wherever you see them,
Keith
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