Sea of Cortez

At 6:45 am we woke to hear on the P.A., "There is a very large baleen whale off the port side of the ship". Cabin doors slid open, blurry-eyed guests stumbled out in their nightshirts, some with toothbrushes hanging from their mouths. Indeed a very large whale was blowing a mere fifty feet from the ship. The next voice on the P.A. said, "If you are not out on deck, you should be because we are watching the largest whale that exists on our planet, a blue whale!" Weighing in at 120 tons and up to 88 feet long, the blue whale is not only the largest whale, but also the largest animal on earth. We watched its breath erupt skyward 30 feet. We could look down into its two massive nostrils, called the blowholes, on top of its head. The skin, mottled blue and gray, shone in the early morning sunlight. As the back of the whale rolled out of the water we could see its tiny dorsal fin. Then suddenly there were two blue whales in front of us and on their last dive they both hoisted their massive flukes high into the air. After this, we certainly did not need any caffeine to wake up.