Petting Whales in Baja California

I’ve been wanting to do this trip for years and it finally came together.  It was a long grueling trip because we stopped first in Watsonville to pick up my son and his girlfriend who go to school in Santa Cruz, then we stopped in San Luis Obispo to pick up my daughter and her boyfriend who both go to school at Cal Poly, then to San Diego for fuel, and then the long flight fighting a headwind to Loreto on the Gulf of California.  For the first time ever I had six people in the plane, so we all went very light.

Loreto is a cool, old Mexican town, but the real goal  of course was the whales.  The next day we flew 45 minutes to Pacific side of Baja at San Ignacio lagoon and landed on a sand/sea shell airstrip.  From there we waded out and got in a large skiff and out to the whales.

The lagoon is the winter nursery for the baby whales.  You can clearly see in the video that there are larger mother whales and their offspring.  Apparently they are so used to the boats that they use them as part of their socialization rituals for the baby whales.   Sure enough, the whales come right up to boat – and what an amazing feeling seeing something that large approach the boat!  Everyone in the boat got to touch and pet a whale.

For us it was a double bonus.  The whales were fantastic, and we also got to spend some great time with our kids in Loreto.