Gorda Banks & Cabo San Lucas

The skies were still tinted with the pinkish hues of sunrise when the first blows were seen in the distance; soon, several more surrounded the first one, as a small group of humpback whales revealed themselves at the surface. Three adult whales swam close to each other, possibly two males and a female, the latter the proud mom of a very young baby. Its tiny body, along with the clumsy way it swam and the still curled-down tip of the dorsal fin, suggested a very young age, possibly just days old. One of the possible males sported an assortment of killer whale tooth-marks on his tail, and was missing the tip of both flukes, the result of a close encounter with the world’s top ocean predator. The waters off the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula are a favorite breeding and calving ground for some of the humpback whales that spend the summer along the western coast of the United States and Canada. They spend the winter months all around the Cape area, being the seamount known as Gorda Banks a popular place.

Early in the afternoon the National Geographic Sea Lion arrived at the marina in Cabo San Lucas; we divided into a couple of groups and set out for snorkeling and bird watching in the nearby San José del Cabo. We all enjoyed the afternoon among corals, white-faced ibises, bicolor parrot fishes, snowy egrets and many more species, both finned and feathered. We even had time to explore the shops and bars in Cabo a little bit before sailing past the magnificent granite formations at land’s end with its world-famous arch that officially marks the boundary between the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean. Tomorrow will be another day full of exciting moments, but I am sure that tonight many of us will dream with tiny baby whales and scarred flukes…