For the last 3 days on the short walk out to the boat at the marina’s dock we saw multiple spouts. The whales have flooded the waters just outside the marina and images of whales with our house, with the towns old mission, and it’s marina in the background have been produced. This has also brought a plethora of boats out to see the whales as it takes all of one minute after exiting the marina to encounter the closest whales.
We saw extraordinary changes this week. Danznate Island last week was absolutely full of plankton and manta rays. This week the waters around Danzante are clear and the rays are gone. We saw many blue whales this week with at least 10 each day we went out. The dolphins were few, but we did get a fantastic double humpback whale display which include double breaches that were only seen at too far a distance to photograph them (sorry).
The seasons blue whale count is now well up into the 30’s and some old friends have now appeared. It seems that it will be the kind of year where the blue whales stay around and it also seems clear that last years explosion of humpbacks was just an oddity that won’t be repeated. Many of the blue whales that are here have been here since early February and stayed here. The first whale of our season was again sighted yesterday and that was the 5th day of this short season that we have seen that particular individual. So the whales seem content and are sticking around which is very good news for them, and for us.
We did see more phytoplankton blooms this week and also a bit of krill just under the surface. Blue whales continue to surface feed and now all 3 of our 2015 groups have seen arc and roll surface feeding by blue whales.
Group 3 was a northeastern group and all of them were thrilled to be out of the snow and in the Baja sunshine. We had great whales, great hikes and scrumptious meals and one and all left as new found friends. One of our walks on Isla Danzante was a special delight to the eyes as green bushes and flowers that are a product of last years hurricane season and this years wettish winter, framed the turquoise colored bay where we had our lunch. There I found an almost 5 foot tall giant barrel cactus that is one of my favorite plants in the world!
Stay tuned for whatever week 4 brings us, next Sunday.
Michael Fishbach
