Morning dawns sunny with a light breeze, here on the western edge of the continent. As cormorants begin flying from their roost after a full moonlit night, graceful royal terns pass over the ship on slender white wings. March is a month of movement for Northern Hemisphere migratory animals.
In the bright morning sunshine our Zodiacs slip away from the Sea Lion to try and make contact with gray whales, the North American champion migratory mammal. These mother and calf pairs will soon be leaving the protection of Mexico's coastal lagoons of the Baja California peninsula for a 5,000 mile journey up the eastern Pacific coast toward their rich feeding grounds in the Chukchi and Bering seas of Alaska.
The calm and quiet of the morning is soon disrupted with excitement as we sight a mother gray whale and calf that show an interest in investigating human behavior. Before long they choose to swim toward us for a closer look and we are more than happy to accommodate their curiosity. The morning's outings leave us all enchanted, and wondering which is the more curious animal, whale or human. And who is having the more intriguing experience, and why, oh why, do gray whales seem to desire this "cross-cultural" contact as much as we do? We may never know the answer, but we will never forget this morning.
