Location: Bahía de La Paz
Right now we are in the Bay of La Paz cruising south. The Inde 2, our skiff, is about a mile away working with three fin whales that the plane spotter found for us before she had to head back in.
Yesterday was the first day of our trip and it was an epic first day. Before lunch we had a nice checkout dive, then we moved to anchor in Bahia La Ventana and we had a free-diving 101 session, then loaded into Inde 2 just as Katie and Scarlett were taking off to scope things out for us. It wasn’t long after they took off that they found a pod of orcas on the NE side of Cerralvo and we all started heading there as fast as possible. Inde 2 arrived ahead of the NGL to find a pod of eight or nine orcas, with no other boats in the area. We arrived shortly thereafter and we all spent 4 or 5 hours with the pod, enjoying some amazing in-water encounters as well as some super cool surface Orca watching, as they played in the wake of Inde 2 at times, in the bow wake of the NGL, and even a breach at one point just behind the Inde.
Yann and I took advantage as well, whenever the Inde fell behind and was recovering their snorkelers, we took turns jumping off the NGL and we both had a heart hammering solo in-water encounter with four or five of the orcas, one big dominant male and three or four big females (or possibly smaller males, I was too excited to notice much besides the fact that they were orcas swimming next to me). There was also a very young calf with a mom and one other possibly adolescent that kept themselves separate from the main pod, although a couple of guests had several relaxing, unhurried encounters with those three orcas. That was our day yesterday!
Today we started off early searching again for the orcas, with the NGL and the plane, but somehow they pulled a disappearing act and were nowhere to be found, even after an aerial search of Bahia La Ventana, south to Cabo Pulmo along the coast, then back north a little offshore, east side of Cerralvo, bay of la Paz and north of Espiritu Santo. But, Katie and Scarlett did find a big school of Mobulas for us and we had a great time within the water before lunch, for about an hour. Then we heard about some pregnant whale sharks up around El Bajo, so we headed up there early afternoon. The spotters tracked a whale shark down for us, but it was not interested in any human interaction. After that, we went into the bay of la Paz and spent the rest of the afternoon with six or seven fin whales around. Lots of great whales watching from the Inde 2 and a flat calm bay with a beautiful sunset. Now all the guests are onboard tucking into Taco night.
- Gordon Kipp
