There is a reason why gray whales choose to make the long journey all the way to San Ignacio Lagoon every winter.
The waters are relatively warm and the lagoon is protected. Mommas feel safe giving birth and raising their calves here. Babies can roll around and swim with the adults all day.
Omicron, weather events, broken supply chains, and a new location that is not easily accessible have made logistics extremely challenging for us. We are deeply sorry that we had to cancel our first few trips because we did not have everything in place yet. We are moving forward and are working very hard to get our camp ready for our first guests this season.
Amidst all this, the whales go on with their business. As we were enjoying the beautiful weather on the panga ride to our camp, we saw a puff of vapor in the distance. It was a gray whale calf! A more voluminous blow spouted up, this time from the mom. Baby looked so tiny next to momma.
Then we saw blows from two more whales! There were four of them! One of them slowly periscoped its head out of the water to check us out. Both gray whales and humpback whales come to Baja to mate and give birth, but spy-hopping is a behavior that I see more among the grays. They routinely pop their head out of the water just to see the lay of the land (or the water).
Since we were outside the whale observation area, we couldn’t stop and wait for them to come to us. We just slowed down to let them pass and not get in their way. The same whale spy-hopped one more time before the dispersed group continued on.
There is a reason why gray whales choose to come to San Ignacio Lagoon and interact with humans. We hope that you’ll join us and experience the magic this season.
- Tanya J. from Baja Expeditions Camp at San Ignacio Lagoon
