TO TOUCH AND BE TOUCHED
We were driving the unpaved route from San Ignacio to Laguna San Ignacio on the Pacific coast of Baja California. It was February, and the gray whales were already there. My husband, Gene, and I were on our way to see them up close and hoped to touch one. We had driven from Northern California, but they had traveled much further – about 5,000 miles from the Bering Sea.
I wish I could say we were bouncing off the washboard road, sharing a Corona, and singing zip-pe-dee-doo-da. Instead, we were singing the blues as the gas can on top of the car pounded the roof like a hammer, with every bump we hit. Gene knew it was scratching and denting the roof of our new car, and it upset him. Since it was a four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicle, I figured no one would ever see the damage. My lack of concern didn’t help matters. I don’t think men mellow with age as soon as women do.
Once in awhile, we left the main road for a parallel, hard-packed, sand track. The car and our nerves would stop rattling for a few minutes, until we had to return to the rougher way. This wasn’t an area where going slow allows you to appreciate the surrounding beauty. The date palms hadn’t ventured far from the oasis town of San Ignacio. A few miles further from town, even the cardon, yucca, and ocotillo gave up. The landscape was sand, salt, and sagebrush, with sand and salt having the upper hand. The salt made the surface dirty and crusty. It is a landscape that makes you want to rush rather than linger, but speed wasn’t an option. I almost wished we would run out of gas, so that we’d be glad we had that plastic can on top. This should be a happy day. We were almost to a destination we’d dreamed of for years, but my spirits were as low as the vegetation.
Forty miserable miles down the road, we arrived at the Laguna and Kuyima campground. I felt like I’d been traveling all day, but it was only noon. It was cold. The wind was fierce. We struggled to set up our tent. It would be nice to open our eyes in the morning to the sight of the water, and, perhaps, whales, but that was the direction the wind came from. We had to turn our backs on the view and face desolation. I know that ugliness, physical and emotional, doesn’t disappear just because you refuse to look at it, but concentrating on the negative doesn’t always help either.
We did manage to get our camp set up, although there was quite a bit of cursing and screaming involved. Then Carlos, the manager of Kuyima, came over and said the wind had died enough that boats were going out whale watching. Did we want to go?
At that point, we might have volunteered for a mission to Mars, just to get into a different space, a better mood. Whales were the focus of our trip. Of course, we wanted to go.
After putting on life vests, we walked down the small bluff to water’s edge. I saw three pangas – sturdy, open boats with outboard motors – pulled up to shore. There were five of us on each boat. We sped quickly out to the observation area near the mouth of the Laguna. All the captains cut their motors to idle. Whales surrounded us. Tall, white plumes blew up high in the air when they exhaled. The water was full of undulating forms as they arched their backs out of the water before diving, their flukes or tails going in last. They were so close to the surface, and to us, that we could easily see which ones were adults and which were calves. Julie, who was leading a study group, said the whales seem to be attracted to splashing, so everyone stuck a hand in the water and commenced splashing. A mother whale maneuvered her baby up close to another panga nearby. All the passengers on that boat managed to reach out and touch the calf. I was so moved, emotionally, that I felt like I had touched that baby whale.
Back on shore, we had a sunset appropriate to the day – dramatic fuchsia and flame. I pictured whales sticking their heads out of the water – spyhopping - to catch the color.
Wind came up again and buffeted the tent all night, causing the metal pulls at the end of the window and door zippers to click like tireless castanets. It didn’t matter. We were happy now.
We went out again the next day. In the air, flocks of black brants flashed their bright white rumps. In the water, there were six boats. I’m not sure if our captain was a loner by nature or if he was trying to maximize the possibility of a friendly gray approaching us, but he often motored away from the other boats. They aren’t supposed to pursue the whales. They’re supposed to let the whales come to them, but when you’re out there with those massive mammals – twenty to forty tons - you realize how difficult it must be for a creature as long as fifty feet to maneuver their bulk into position without capsizing the boat. A number of attempts by whales to get close enough to us failed. They don’t approach the boats for food. Adults won’t eat again until they are back in their feeding grounds in the far north, and calves are nursing. Apparently, they are motivated by curiosity and a desire for human contact, feelings they can indulge in these areas where man no longer hunts and kills them.
We’d been out almost two hours when a baby finally got up next to us. We all got to touch her. She was soft and smooth. I wonder what it felt like to the whale to be touched.
We walked up the road to a fish camp to buy a fresh catch to cook for dinner, but they didn’t have any. In Cabo San Lucas and Loreto, where the fishing is world famous, the same thing has happened to us, so I was prepared to cook something else. I tore up stale corn tortillas and threw them in with a can of chili, another of salsa, and some cheese. It was muy bien.
The drive out was so different from the drive in. It wasn’t the road or weather that had changed. We no longer had the gas container bouncing around on top. Carlos gave us a discount on our bill in return for the big red can full of fuel, but there was more to it than that. We had touched a whale, and that made all the difference.
Our second destination was Bahia Magdalena. This time the way was a two lane highway, paved and in good condition. We set up camp in San Carlos, the village on the bay at the end of the road. Gene found fresh seafood for sale at a little store. They had local clams, called chocolates because of the shell’s color, a bucket of shrimp, and fish. Gene bought fish and grilled it on our small, portable, gas barbecue. We didn’t know the proper name of the fish, but we called it delicioso.
We made an agreement with another couple, Gay and Rick, to share the cost of a boat. We met at 7:30 in the damp morning for the forty-five minute ride to the mouth, la boca, where the Pacific feeds into the bay. The water is deeper there, so we saw more breaching, the whales leaping all the way out into the air, coming down like huge cannonballs.
Gay and Rick have come here almost every year since 1985. It has become a pilgrimage for them. She has a photo of herself kissing a whale, another of her hugging one. They say they don’t recognize particular whales, but I wonder if the whales recognize them after so many return visits.
A whale came close to our boat. Gay started to tap the side of the panga with one knuckle. I started splashing. The whale took a dive and got us wet. Gay asks me, what’s with the splashing? I tell her about San Ignacio. She says these aren’t San Ignacio whales. I don’t splash again. She doesn’t get any hugs or kisses that day. She says every day is different, but I wonder if she blames me.
The most dramatic, up-close-and-personal whale watching is on the Pacific side, but we did see whales off shore from our camp near Aqua Verde on the Sea of Cortez. Agua Verde is a permanent fish camp, but when we ask a fis
herman if we can buy fish from him, he says we must talk to his patron. By the time we found our ideal campsite, we were far from his patron, but we got fresh fish anyway. A frigate bird with a live catch in his beak flew toward the rocky shore by our camp. Three sea gulls harassed him and succeeded in getting him to drop his dinner on the rocks below. While the gulls bickered over the booty, Gene claimed it as his own. Again, we ate fish without a name. We called this one fantastico.
Ojo de Liebre, near Guerrero Negro, was our last whale watching spot. A hard packed sand road from the main highway to the laguna was fast and good. There was a visitor’s center with displays, restrooms, and a restaurant. They sell tickets there and try to get a full boat of ten passengers before they go out for an hour and a half. Just as the operations are different at each place, so are the whales. Here their favorite trick was spyhopping. Triangles of black rose out of the water like small skyscrapers. A man on our boat said, “There’s a whale standing up!” The whale was up so long that I wondered if he really was standing up. Everyone on the boat was ecstatic. One couple was there from West Virginia to see the spectacle. She said, “This is so worth the trip.”
A whale showed a special interest in us. I started to tap on the side of the boat. The captain chastised me. So here’s the deal – splash in San Ignacio, tap in Bahia Magdalena, and keep your hands to yourself in Ojo de Liebre. I’m not sure the whales care, but some of the humans are rather touchy.
We were driving the unpaved route from San Ignacio to Laguna San Ignacio on the Pacific coast of Baja California. It was February, and the gray whales were already there. My husband, Gene, and I were on our way to see them up close and hoped to touch one. We had driven from Northern California, but they had traveled much further – about 5,000 miles from the Bering Sea.
I wish I could say we were bouncing off the washboard road, sharing a Corona, and singing zip-pe-dee-doo-da. Instead, we were singing the blues as the gas can on top of the car pounded the roof like a hammer, with every bump we hit. Gene knew it was scratching and denting the roof of our new car, and it upset him. Since it was a four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicle, I figured no one would ever see the damage. My lack of concern didn’t help matters. I don’t think men mellow with age as soon as women do.
Once in awhile, we left the main road for a parallel, hard-packed, sand track. The car and our nerves would stop rattling for a few minutes, until we had to return to the rougher way. This wasn’t an area where going slow allows you to appreciate the surrounding beauty. The date palms hadn’t ventured far from the oasis town of San Ignacio. A few miles further from town, even the cardon, yucca, and ocotillo gave up. The landscape was sand, salt, and sagebrush, with sand and salt having the upper hand. The salt made the surface dirty and crusty. It is a landscape that makes you want to rush rather than linger, but speed wasn’t an option. I almost wished we would run out of gas, so that we’d be glad we had that plastic can on top. This should be a happy day. We were almost to a destination we’d dreamed of for years, but my spirits were as low as the vegetation.
Forty miserable miles down the road, we arrived at the Laguna and Kuyima campground. I felt like I’d been traveling all day, but it was only noon. It was cold. The wind was fierce. We struggled to set up our tent. It would be nice to open our eyes in the morning to the sight of the water, and, perhaps, whales, but that was the direction the wind came from. We had to turn our backs on the view and face desolation. I know that ugliness, physical and emotional, doesn’t disappear just because you refuse to look at it, but concentrating on the negative doesn’t always help either.
We did manage to get our camp set up, although there was quite a bit of cursing and screaming involved. Then Carlos, the manager of Kuyima, came over and said the wind had died enough that boats were going out whale watching. Did we want to go?
At that point, we might have volunteered for a mission to Mars, just to get into a different space, a better mood. Whales were the focus of our trip. Of course, we wanted to go.
After putting on life vests, we walked down the small bluff to water’s edge. I saw three pangas – sturdy, open boats with outboard motors – pulled up to shore. There were five of us on each boat. We sped quickly out to the observation area near the mouth of the Laguna. All the captains cut their motors to idle. Whales surrounded us. Tall, white plumes blew up high in the air when they exhaled. The water was full of undulating forms as they arched their backs out of the water before diving, their flukes or tails going in last. They were so close to the surface, and to us, that we could easily see which ones were adults and which were calves. Julie, who was leading a study group, said the whales seem to be attracted to splashing, so everyone stuck a hand in the water and commenced splashing. A mother whale maneuvered her baby up close to another panga nearby. All the passengers on that boat managed to reach out and touch the calf. I was so moved, emotionally, that I felt like I had touched that baby whale.
Back on shore, we had a sunset appropriate to the day – dramatic fuchsia and flame. I pictured whales sticking their heads out of the water – spyhopping - to catch the color.
Wind came up again and buffeted the tent all night, causing the metal pulls at the end of the window and door zippers to click like tireless castanets. It didn’t matter. We were happy now.
We went out again the next day. In the air, flocks of black brants flashed their bright white rumps. In the water, there were six boats. I’m not sure if our captain was a loner by nature or if he was trying to maximize the possibility of a friendly gray approaching us, but he often motored away from the other boats. They aren’t supposed to pursue the whales. They’re supposed to let the whales come to them, but when you’re out there with those massive mammals – twenty to forty tons - you realize how difficult it must be for a creature as long as fifty feet to maneuver their bulk into position without capsizing the boat. A number of attempts by whales to get close enough to us failed. They don’t approach the boats for food. Adults won’t eat again until they are back in their feeding grounds in the far north, and calves are nursing. Apparently, they are motivated by curiosity and a desire for human contact, feelings they can indulge in these areas where man no longer hunts and kills them.
We’d been out almost two hours when a baby finally got up next to us. We all got to touch her. She was soft and smooth. I wonder what it felt like to the whale to be touched.
We walked up the road to a fish camp to buy a fresh catch to cook for dinner, but they didn’t have any. In Cabo San Lucas and Loreto, where the fishing is world famous, the same thing has happened to us, so I was prepared to cook something else. I tore up stale corn tortillas and threw them in with a can of chili, another of salsa, and some cheese. It was muy bien.
The drive out was so different from the drive in. It wasn’t the road or weather that had changed. We no longer had the gas container bouncing around on top. Carlos gave us a discount on our bill in return for the big red can full of fuel, but there was more to it than that. We had touched a whale, and that made all the difference.
Our second destination was Bahia Magdalena. This time the way was a two lane highway, paved and in good condition. We set up camp in San Carlos, the village on the bay at the end of the road. Gene found fresh seafood for sale at a little store. They had local clams, called chocolates because of the shell’s color, a bucket of shrimp, and fish. Gene bought fish and grilled it on our small, portable, gas barbecue. We didn’t know the proper name of the fish, but we called it delicioso.
We made an agreement with another couple, Gay and Rick, to share the cost of a boat. We met at 7:30 in the damp morning for the forty-five minute ride to the mouth, la boca, where the Pacific feeds into the bay. The water is deeper there, so we saw more breaching, the whales leaping all the way out into the air, coming down like huge cannonballs.
Gay and Rick have come here almost every year since 1985. It has become a pilgrimage for them. She has a photo of herself kissing a whale, another of her hugging one. They say they don’t recognize particular whales, but I wonder if the whales recognize them after so many return visits.
A whale came close to our boat. Gay started to tap the side of the panga with one knuckle. I started splashing. The whale took a dive and got us wet. Gay asks me, what’s with the splashing? I tell her about San Ignacio. She says these aren’t San Ignacio whales. I don’t splash again. She doesn’t get any hugs or kisses that day. She says every day is different, but I wonder if she blames me.
The most dramatic, up-close-and-personal whale watching is on the Pacific side, but we did see whales off shore from our camp near Aqua Verde on the Sea of Cortez. Agua Verde is a permanent fish camp, but when we ask a fis
herman if we can buy fish from him, he says we must talk to his patron. By the time we found our ideal campsite, we were far from his patron, but we got fresh fish anyway. A frigate bird with a live catch in his beak flew toward the rocky shore by our camp. Three sea gulls harassed him and succeeded in getting him to drop his dinner on the rocks below. While the gulls bickered over the booty, Gene claimed it as his own. Again, we ate fish without a name. We called this one fantastico.Ojo de Liebre, near Guerrero Negro, was our last whale watching spot. A hard packed sand road from the main highway to the laguna was fast and good. There was a visitor’s center with displays, restrooms, and a restaurant. They sell tickets there and try to get a full boat of ten passengers before they go out for an hour and a half. Just as the operations are different at each place, so are the whales. Here their favorite trick was spyhopping. Triangles of black rose out of the water like small skyscrapers. A man on our boat said, “There’s a whale standing up!” The whale was up so long that I wondered if he really was standing up. Everyone on the boat was ecstatic. One couple was there from West Virginia to see the spectacle. She said, “This is so worth the trip.”
A whale showed a special interest in us. I started to tap on the side of the boat. The captain chastised me. So here’s the deal – splash in San Ignacio, tap in Bahia Magdalena, and keep your hands to yourself in Ojo de Liebre. I’m not sure the whales care, but some of the humans are rather touchy.
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