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I’m BACK!!!
Alright, so here’s a sum up: My wonderful soon-to-be-inlaws took my fiance and I with them on a trip to Baja California, to San Ignacio Lagoon – this is one of the few lagoons in the world where the Gray Whales go to give birth and to mate, and pretty much the only place where the whales exhibit such blatantly “friendly” behavior. The first friendly encounter with one of these whales in the lagoon occured in the 70’s when a whale approched a fisherman’s boat and remained until the fisherman reached out to touch her. Since then, there has been a steady increase of these whale-initiated contacts with people in small boats. In very recent years, there have been a few instances of this behavior outside of the lagoon, but primarily, this is the only place in the world where these whales feel safe enough to approach people. And they don’t just APPROACH people, cows will come and nudge their calves up to people’s outstreached hands. They roll and play beneath the boats, scratching against the bottom, bumping the sides, rising up to be petted and scratched by us crazy tourists. While the Panga (the small skiffs we rode in) drivers will manouver us close to the whales, it is truly the whale’s decision to be played with. And when they don’t want to play, they just dive under the boat and carry on in whatever direction they were swimming.
To make a long story short, I touched whales. A whole bunch of them. Babies too. Heck, I stuck my hand in a calves mouth and even touched a little baleene! I’ve got some decent pictures, though for the most part I tried to protect my camera (it was WET!) so I don’t have toooooo many pictures of us actually in the pangas with whales. But I have a few. And a few videos. And I’d like to share them if you want to see them. Go to my photobucket account:
http://s40.photobucket.com/albums/e220/arlla/Baja%20Adventure/
I’ve got it sectioned off by day. There’s a whole bunch of other things besides whales – plants, birds, elephant seals, injuries sustained by my fellow passengers, all sorts of stuff. The videos are in their own folder – One is a fight between two bull elephant seals, another is of a couple dolphins riding our bow wave as we left the lagoon, and finally some great video of a momma and her calf as they came to visit our ship, the Royal Polaris (that video was taken right off the stern – we weren’t even in a little panga).
In all seriousness, all the things we saw besides the whales were really wonderful in their own right – they would have made a truly stupendous trip all on their own – it’s just that the whales sort of dwarfed everything else in their magnificence… ;D I remember them the most vividly!This was the most amazing trip I’ve ever been on, and being with those whales really awakened and nourished something inside me…I know I have to see them again. I hope I can go back to San Ignacio someday in the not too distant future, and I’d love to plan a trip up the coast to follow their migration.
Thanks for letting me share, guys! 😉
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
-J R R TolkienThat trip must have been A BLAST!!!! The skeleton was intense and the baby whale was SO CUTE! The blurry picture of the whale reminded me of those old shots of Nessie the Sea Monster back in the day! LOL
I’m glad you had a good time! The sunsets were so pretty and the seals! OHHHH so cute!!!! Well, except those male elephant seals, they were pretty mean looking! haha! I’m so happy you had a good trip!
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Dreamscape, Orion, Poison Dart, Fireberry, Spangler + Tigerberry DragonsHA I know!! XD I totally had a picture of big foot in the ocean…that wasn’t actually a gray whale, folks, it was a UFO that had crashed in the sea. It’s blurry so you can’t prove I’m wrong.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
-J R R TolkienThanks! 😀 It was truly spectacular. I hope I can experience somthing that moving and awe inspiring again in my life…it would be tough to top this trip though!
Those videos I put up are really a little sad…I’ve got a much longer and better one of the elephant seal fight (right up to the end) and a much longer video of the dolphins on the bow…but Photobucket would only let me load up the small ones. Gives you a taste, though! Sorry they’re bad quality – I took them with my little cannon digi cam.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
-J R R TolkienIt looks like you had a great trip — I’m glad you got so many pictures, thanks for sharing! The bull elephant seal fight was really neat. They reminded me of sumo wrestlers. 🙂
😀 The one on the right (in the video) won. And they are VERY much like sumo wrestlers!! Except for the part where they bite each other bloody…lol I felt very privledged to be able to see that fight…I never thought I’d see something like that unless I were watching the discovery channel! It was amazing. And the sounds they made were pretty amazing too. Sorry I can’t share that!
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
-J R R TolkienEeek! Did the biting part happen some time after you took the video? And here I thought these two looked like they were fighting in such a civilized way…like they were doing the elephant seal version of wrestling… 😆
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