It was March, both Theresa and I had time off, on the spur of the moment we decided to go to Baja, Mexico, one of my favorite place on the planet. It took me a while to realize why we like central Baja so much. The majority of tourists are south in the big cities, in central Baja, we get the same sense of freedom we experience in Yukon; paddle the ocean, instead of rivers, and camp wherever you feel like, on beautiful paradise beaches we have all to ourselves.
When we arrived in Loreto we heard the whales were in. A local tourist salesman, recognizing our white, not tanned skins; hit on us trying to sell us a tour. Instead we went to the harbor and connected with a local fisherman. 20 kms South we found blue whales, the largest mammal on the planet, so many of them that our boat pilot called on the radio to say: “puro ballenas” (nothing but whales). They were in a bay with their calves feeding on plankton and possibly Krill. After a couple of hours taking pictures we finally put the camera down and just enjoyed the show for the rest of the day.
The same evening we heard that Grey whales were on the Pacific side west from where we stayed. The next day, we hopped in our car and drove across to Lopez Mateos. A fisherman offered to take us out right away but we opted to have lunch first in a small hut the same fisherman had recommended. The garlic fish was great so we went back to the same fisherman; anybody who recommends good food had to be good. To our surprise he passed many grey whales and calf, saying not this one. He finally reached one he liked, saying: “la madre es tranquila” (mellow). He tapped the side of the boat and the calf came to us so Theresa could pet it; I could hardly believe it. After a while the calf spotted me taking countless pictures and came over to say Hi. It circled us and found the fisherman so; everybody on the boat got to pet it and had a visit. Meanwhile, Mom kept spy hopping around the boat, checking on her calf. It lasted almost 4 hours.
