Hi All,
The Baja 2015 season is rapidly approaching and it is shaping up to be a very exciting time! So much so that this is the first ever PreSeason Blog. First of all we all totally full for the season so it will be a busy time indeed. We begin with a film crew form the UK and afterwards will have guests from Hawaii, Washington, New York, New Jersey, Missouri, Maine, Colorado, California, Florida, Rhode Island, Massachussetts, Alaska and 2 more from the UK!
The first blue whales have already been sighted down in our working area! Yeah! Our daughter Delphi will return again to join my wife Heather and our son Galen in helping this season to run smoothly. Of course our whole family and all our guests will enjoy the never ending sunshine in the place where the whales blow and the mountains and desert meet the sea!
Our 2015 Baja season will mark the beginning of a collaboration between our Non-Profit Organization the Great Whale Conservancy and Harvard University. The gist of this joint effort will focus on the fact that whales enrich the oceanic environment they live in by depositing important minerals to the surface waters via their feces. These minerals stimulate the growth of phytoplankton which is the base of all life in the ocean, and via photosynthesis gives us most of the oxygen we breathe. This phytoplankton also helps to minimize the effects of climate change through the sequestering of vast amounts of carbon. We will collect whale feces in the field this season to be transported back to Harvard for processing. In this manner more of the secrets of this process can be uncovered. For a short informative video on this process which is called the “Whale Pump” you can watch the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M18HxXve3CM. We believe that the Whale Pump can be a powerful tool in our efforts to save the existing whales. It can also help many people to understand the importance of all efforts to repopulate the depleted whale numbers that remain after the era of whaling!
Meanwhile the still, video and underwater cameras, the GPS and compass, the hydrophone, the marine radio, the waterproof cases, snorkels and flippers, binoculars, computers, sunglasses, sunscreen, hats and much more are beginning to be packed for the journey down south. See the below image of a portion of the field gear getting packed for the trip down to Baja. I promise the next images will be of the whales, dolphins and gorgeous scenery down on the Sea of Cortez. Plus you might have to put up with an image or two of us collecting some good old whale poop! The mystery of what we will see and capture on film bring us back eagerly each and every year.
Thanks for your continued interest in what we do.
Sincerely, Michael Fishbach
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