Baja Incredible!

By Chris Breen

30 July 2024

Off Land’s End (at the tip of the Baja Peninsula) it was early in the day and the sun was shining, the air was still and the sea almost greasy. It was warm and we were in the tropics.

On deck we were looking for and seeing humpback blows, though they tended to be quite a way away from the boat. It didn’t matter too much because we were confident that our captain was going to be able to steer us to some good humpback whale activity. And crucially, finding a single humpback wasn’t what we were after, we wanted a small group. And we weren’t disappointed.

At 11.10am we saw a humpback breaching relatively close to our boat and the captain manoeuvred the boat closer, and we watched what could only be described as a ‘breaching fiesta’. Over the course of the next hour ‘our’ humpback breached no less than 43 times and tail-slapped 14 times. To describe it as ‘utterly spectacular’ would be to do it a dis-service. But this one humpback wasn’t the only one that was breaching there were others too. We could see them from the bow of the ship, the stern, and from both sides.

Image by Chris Breen

But it wasn’t just breaching, there was fin-slapping and tail-lobbing, and we saw females cruising with ‘escort’ males (sometimes one, sometimes two) hopeful of being able to mate.

And this was just day one!

Image by Chris Breen

Next, we were off to the Sea of Cortez and the chance to swim with whale sharks – it was incredible – but that’s another story altogether. And then we boarded the beautifully appointed Gallant Lady. A magnificent motor-cruiser of the type you would expect to see in the Galapagos, or perhaps moored in St Tropez! It only has six cabins, each with en-suite facilities and all of them have windows or portholes. The food is superb, the onboard team is superb and when this ‘floating home’ is combined with a spotter plane to help find blue whales (and others) it is probably the very best platform for cetacean watching in Mexican waters – and most especially in the calm waters of the Sea of Cortez.

Image by David Serradell

Staying at a luxurious camp overlooking San Ignacio Lagoon gave us the chance to see the world-famous friendly grey whales, and return at the end of each excursion to a large African safari-style tent with en-suite facilities and comfortable sofas.

We had two pangas for whale-watching, one of them had good close encounters with grey whales, while the other was much quieter. But ‘quieter’ is only by a matter of degree. As the ‘quiet’ boat was returning to camp they came across a mother calf pair and slowed down to see if the whales would approach the boat. They did. And the encounter was incredible. The calf came to the panga and simply wouldn’t leave it alone. It was with the panga for nearly 30 minutes, and everyone was able to play with the calf.

Image by Chris Breen

Everyone was over the moon. Showers, pre-dinner drinks and dinner then followed, after which we and we spent 20 minutes or so looking at the night sky. Many of the stars, planets and constellations we could see are also visible from home – the Great Bear, Orion and Jupiter – but there are few places in the world these days with absolutely no light pollution at all. And we listened to whale blows in the distance. Magical.