Land’s End to Gorda Bank
Our ship departed the pier at Cabo San Lucas just before sunrise, making its way out of the harbor entrance to linger by the dramatic rocks at Land’s End. The captain positioned the Sea Bird just off of the famous Arch Rock for photo opportunities as the sun rose behind us. Sea lions barked from their lounging rock nearby, and brown pelicans soared past the towering spires. As the sport fishing fleet was leaving the harbor, we turned and began our search for whales. It was only moments until the first group of humpback whales was spotted, and what a fantastic bunch they were. For the next hour we were treated to one of the most astounding displays of whale breaching and flipper slapping to have ever been seen. Over and over these whales leapt out of the sea, flinging water from their immense pectoral flippers with acrobatic grace. (The Video Chronicler, who claims to have missed many of the breaches, counted 69 breaches when reviewing the tape.) These whales certainly have a place in the breaching record books.
After breakfast, we encountered several more humpbacks, including a breaching youngster. Although it didn’t show the stamina of our earlier whales, it did an admirable job of high jumping, coming completely out of the water several times. As we made our way towards Gorda Bank, we encountered more humpback whales, some displaying surface behaviors, including a few distant breaches, but we had clearly been spoiled early in the day. In the late morning, we were treated to a lively presentation by George Sirk describing the “Birds of Baja,” with actively hand-drawn illustrations.
Throughout the afternoon, we found and attempted to watch different groups of humpback whales. We had a far too brief encounter which a few bottlenose dolphins, who evidently had a different agenda. Several red-billed tropicbirds flew past, trailing their elongated central tail feathers. By sunset, we were near shore watching three more humpback whales. As with our first group of the day, this was a cow and calf pair with an adult male “escort.” As the sky above the distant mountains of the peninsula was turning scarlet, our ship lay idle in the water as these three whales circled the ship less than a whale’s length away. We finished the day with our resident humpback whale expert, Captain Jeff Kalbach, telling us many fascinating things about these endangered creatures that he has studied for many years in Hawaii. His words reminded us of how incredibly fortunate we were to spend an entire day in their company, noting that the morning’s breaching event was certainly one of the best ever.
Our ship departed the pier at Cabo San Lucas just before sunrise, making its way out of the harbor entrance to linger by the dramatic rocks at Land’s End. The captain positioned the Sea Bird just off of the famous Arch Rock for photo opportunities as the sun rose behind us. Sea lions barked from their lounging rock nearby, and brown pelicans soared past the towering spires. As the sport fishing fleet was leaving the harbor, we turned and began our search for whales. It was only moments until the first group of humpback whales was spotted, and what a fantastic bunch they were. For the next hour we were treated to one of the most astounding displays of whale breaching and flipper slapping to have ever been seen. Over and over these whales leapt out of the sea, flinging water from their immense pectoral flippers with acrobatic grace. (The Video Chronicler, who claims to have missed many of the breaches, counted 69 breaches when reviewing the tape.) These whales certainly have a place in the breaching record books.
After breakfast, we encountered several more humpbacks, including a breaching youngster. Although it didn’t show the stamina of our earlier whales, it did an admirable job of high jumping, coming completely out of the water several times. As we made our way towards Gorda Bank, we encountered more humpback whales, some displaying surface behaviors, including a few distant breaches, but we had clearly been spoiled early in the day. In the late morning, we were treated to a lively presentation by George Sirk describing the “Birds of Baja,” with actively hand-drawn illustrations.
Throughout the afternoon, we found and attempted to watch different groups of humpback whales. We had a far too brief encounter which a few bottlenose dolphins, who evidently had a different agenda. Several red-billed tropicbirds flew past, trailing their elongated central tail feathers. By sunset, we were near shore watching three more humpback whales. As with our first group of the day, this was a cow and calf pair with an adult male “escort.” As the sky above the distant mountains of the peninsula was turning scarlet, our ship lay idle in the water as these three whales circled the ship less than a whale’s length away. We finished the day with our resident humpback whale expert, Captain Jeff Kalbach, telling us many fascinating things about these endangered creatures that he has studied for many years in Hawaii. His words reminded us of how incredibly fortunate we were to spend an entire day in their company, noting that the morning’s breaching event was certainly one of the best ever.
