Gray Whales

3/25/15

Just the snout alongside (calf)

Close enough to touch (calf)

We rented a car to drive to San Ingnacio and then out to Bahia San Ignacio to watch the whales.  I was shocked when the rental car was delivered on time and it was a new (2000 miles) Nissan.  Air conditioning and all for 900 pesos for the day ($60).  On the drive Cooper says "hey dad, there's a winch handle in the door and when you turn it the window goes up and down"  Crazy, the kid has never seen a manual window...  The drive was interesting as the interior up in the mountains was really green and pretty.  Typical of Mx driving the road was really pretty good but allowed for ZERO margin of error.  Just wide enough for two vehicles and NO shoulder.  Where the shoulder would be in the US were drops that varied from 2-500 feet with no guardrail.  The last 12km out to the camp was primitive and with so much washboard that we were able to only go about 10mph.  It was all worth it though.  After loading in the panga and going 15 minutes out to the bay it only took about 20 minutes until a mother and calf came right alongside the boat.  Close enough to touch!.  Splashing seems to attract them and the guide says they like to be scratched and they also will scrape along the boat.  It was spectacular when the calf came up to the boat and rolled onto it's side and opened its mouth a bit.  We could see the baleen and the eye.  They feel kind of odd, I expected them to be fairly firm but they are really kind of jiggly like jello under the smooth skin.  Researching them yield some crazy things like the calves drink 50 gallons of their mother's milk a day and it's close to the consistency of butter?  There were quite a few of the whales around and about the boat and we spent two and a half hours amongst them.