We arrived in Bahia de los Angeles and drop anchor. The local panga are on their way to pick us up, here in the national park of BLA you have to work with local pangas and you better do because those guys doing that since forever and they know their operation. We boarded the pangas with 6 guests each, 4 pangas heading to the shallows were the Whale Sharks are supposed to hang out. After reaching the area within 15 minutes we begin to spot for Whale Sharks. It’s tough because it’s cloudy and for that we have diffused light and that results in a lot of glare.
It took us not even 3 minutes to spot the first gentle giant and every panga spot his own shark so we begin to jump in the water only 4 snorkelers at a time, to not over stress the sensible animal. From the first jump, we never stoped hitting the water. Sometimes we even had 2 Sharks around and some others close by. It was insane, shallows just filled with Whale Sharks. I could not really figure how much were in the area, a good dozen for sure. Guest squeaking and shouting in the water and in the panga, exited talks about their encounters, just wow!
Here in BLA its not only the Whale Shark interaction that counts, we are in a more than beautiful, wild area, mountains surrounding the entire bay with a very flat very green mangrove part, loads of different shades of green and brown, the mountains with caps of clouds and behind the high sierra big cumulonimbus clouds rising into the blue sky. It is one of the most beautiful landscape that in know of in the north Baja California, The best part of it we are alone, nobody else as us is here to snorkel with those giants of the sea, its almost always like that, a lost paradise. The entry of the bay has a big island in front and a lot of smaller island, it looks jurassic, it feels archaic, it smells wild…
We were so lucky to have static Whale Sharks, standing in the water motionless and creating vortices to feed, incredible to snorkel with Whale Sharks during almost 5 hours in total and half of the time without swimming. We were even more lucky because we could observe Cownose rays coming close to the Whale Sharks, 30-40 aggregated and circled underneath the snorkelers, golden brown rays, shimmering on the surface and diving under the snorkelers and the Whale shark… It was the blast, one of my best experience that I ever had in that bay. I feel blessed to be able to share my love for that place with our guests. Magical and simple, wild and lost… a place to discover…
A Perfect day.
-Pascal, Dive Guide
