Boca de Solidad, Baja California Sur
Magic… just plain magic. As I write this, images of this fantastic place pass like a movie before my mind’s eye. Desert and ocean together—intertwined in a dance of wet and dry, hot and cool, light and dark—the two ‘scapes’, sea and land, united in this unique place on the planet. I have been migrating to these Baja desert lagoons annually for 35 years and it never ceases to move and inspire me anew.
This morning, before first light, a dense fog sat heavily upon the land and the water and everything was soaked with dew. By dawn the clouds had lifted a few hundred feet but still blanketed the sky with a gray cloak. However, at eye level we were able to see along the horizon to the shoreline of mangroves, dunes and sand bars. And whales!! California Gray Whales….puffing and spouting and lifting their oddly pointy snouts into the air in what the whaler’s called a spy hop or spying out. Yesterday a lot of information about gray whales was given to us in a slide illustrated talk and also on the deck as the National Geographic Sea Bird made her way 30 miles up the lagoons to our overnight anchorage at Boca de Solidad. But today, we saw the whales, whooped and hollered when then came close and immersed ourselves in their whale-life. Our entire day was dedicated to watching these leviathans. Mostly we enjoyed seeing the mother whales and their babies swimming and rolling over one another, often swimming against the tide so that the babies might get strong enough to make the upcoming 5000 mile migration with mom to the feeding grounds in the Bering and Chuckchi seas. Sometimes the babies seemed to be repeatedly diving below the belly of their mother in what appeared to be nursing bouts. There were fantastic behaviors to observe all day - so foreign to our land-oriented minds. And to most of our host of questions, we had to settle for the fact that we and the experts just don’t know. Viva el misterio!
Magic… just plain magic. As I write this, images of this fantastic place pass like a movie before my mind’s eye. Desert and ocean together—intertwined in a dance of wet and dry, hot and cool, light and dark—the two ‘scapes’, sea and land, united in this unique place on the planet. I have been migrating to these Baja desert lagoons annually for 35 years and it never ceases to move and inspire me anew.
This morning, before first light, a dense fog sat heavily upon the land and the water and everything was soaked with dew. By dawn the clouds had lifted a few hundred feet but still blanketed the sky with a gray cloak. However, at eye level we were able to see along the horizon to the shoreline of mangroves, dunes and sand bars. And whales!! California Gray Whales….puffing and spouting and lifting their oddly pointy snouts into the air in what the whaler’s called a spy hop or spying out. Yesterday a lot of information about gray whales was given to us in a slide illustrated talk and also on the deck as the National Geographic Sea Bird made her way 30 miles up the lagoons to our overnight anchorage at Boca de Solidad. But today, we saw the whales, whooped and hollered when then came close and immersed ourselves in their whale-life. Our entire day was dedicated to watching these leviathans. Mostly we enjoyed seeing the mother whales and their babies swimming and rolling over one another, often swimming against the tide so that the babies might get strong enough to make the upcoming 5000 mile migration with mom to the feeding grounds in the Bering and Chuckchi seas. Sometimes the babies seemed to be repeatedly diving below the belly of their mother in what appeared to be nursing bouts. There were fantastic behaviors to observe all day - so foreign to our land-oriented minds. And to most of our host of questions, we had to settle for the fact that we and the experts just don’t know. Viva el misterio!
