Our Week 3 guests hailed from New York, Massachusetts, Texas and North Carolina.
Our group 3 guests were greeted with a massive multi day north wind that howled and howled some more. On Thursday the winds finally died on the other side of the peninsula and one and all went over to see the gray whales in Magdalena Bay. It seemed that everyone deserved what they got, a fabulous encounter where every person on the boat touched and rubbed a gray whale or 2, or maybe even 3. Spirits ran high after all the land days and the next 2 days we were finally back out here on the Sea of Cortez. Many blue whales greeted our return along with fin whales and humpbacks and the usual throngs of dolphins. And now we are seeing manta rays and those rays are jumping high into the air with some regularity. One oddity near weeks end was the high percentage of blue whales that dove with their tail fluke rising above the surface, but this only when observed at a distance, where as very few of them pulled their flukes up when we were closer to them.
Clearly the throngs of blue whales we had seen before the big wind were mostly still around although the huge numbers were now a bit lower. We also observed a resting humpback whale very near to isla Danzante and upon looking more closely at the image I took we could clearly see a deep wound on the side of it’s head as well as a smaller gash closer to the blowholes. This is highly unusual and we of course hope for the well being of that whale.
I will add a great pleasure in having one of my oldest childhood friends join us from New York! And as I’m late putting this blog out I can already tell you that the Week 4 blog is going to be fabulous just from what we have encountered in the first days of this week, so stay tuned for some super images.
