The 2014 Baja Season Begins in Style

Our 19th Baja season began on Feb. 10th.  It was a fine day with a very solid number of blue whales sighted right off the bat.

Amazing but true is the now infamous individual called White Eyes was the very first whale we spotted.  After a day on the water in which we saw 12 blue whales the old north wind returned and knocked us on shore for two days.  Little did we know that while we were onshore the waters we work in would fill up with more whales that we could even count.  Saturday the 15 of Feb. brought us between 25 and 30 blue whales, 2 humpback whales and a Brydes Whale!  Earlier in the week we observed the fin whale with the chopped dorsal fin that we have seen here more than any other individual whale in the past 20 years.  There are healthy number of dolphins and lower numbers of sea birds than usual.  We observed quite a few sharks, had jumping rays, saw a sea turtle and even this early in the season we saw a dorado.  They usually are not seen here until at least April!

It is unusually hot here for February and the sea temperature is also quite a bit above average. The winds have died down and we are forecast to have calm days for most of the upcoming week. On the 15th of Feb. we travelled about 50 miles and never once on the whole day were we out of sight of at least one blue whale.

We observed our first cow/calf blue whale pair also on the 15th.  We have seen a lot of whales surface feeding this week, and we had a humpback breach clear out of the water very close to our boat! The whole Fishbach clan is here with great meals coming from Sather and Heather, fresh squeezed orange juice and help aboard from Delphi and Galen’s constantly active 8 year old energy keeping us all amused and on our toes.

One final note is to recognize our dear friend Ashanka Kananda who made her 6th visit to see the whales of the Sea of Cortez with us and had another great week. Thank you Ashanka!  We also hosted our new friends Donna Bone and Robert Shutz.

It is great to be back and go out on our second home on the Sea of Cortez.  More to come next week.