Baja Jones After Action Review of the 2013 Gray Whale Watching Season in Baja

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

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

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