Hello whalewatchers,
We had an extraordinary day today! It started with a great sunset at Punta Colorado, Isla San Jose, then a skiff ride followed by a hike on the island, and then a snorkel for those interested. The water was a bit chilly in the mid 60’s with good visibility.
Then the fun began. I have seen quite a few spectacular things in the Sea Of Cortez and today has to be one of the top 10 in my career. We started seeing large groups of birds diving and the closer we got the more life was seen with 2000 to 3000 common dolphin along with 10 to 12 Brydes whales, all feeding in the same area on small bait fish. We saw Brydes whales lunging through these large balls of baitfish, dolphins in the same area along with pelicans, frigates, gulls and a few boobies. There were at least 10 different schools of bait fish twice the size of the Searcher in a 2 square mile area. It was hard to decide which area to be in. We narrowed it down to where the Brydes whales were feeding. This all happened in less than an hour from leaving Punta Colorado. In every direction you looked there were feeding frenzies.
After about 2 hours of observing this we decided to leave and head for a tall spout in the distance and found it to be a blue whale. It was diving deep and down for several minutes so we continued on and the boys up top found another blue whale that turned out to be a cow and calf. We followed them for about a half an hour and decide since we only had an hour of daylight left to continue on and see what else we could see. Just as we sped up to leave the calf surfaced right next to us, we stopped and the calf about 35 feet in length came alongside us and went right under the bow. It circled us for about a half hour staying very close. It was incredible to have this happen. I have only seen it maybe twice before so it was very special . We saw the cow about a half mile from us and she stayed at that distance while the calf stayed with us. What an experience! When we thought the calf had left us there was another whale that surfaced right next to us and we realized it was not the blue whale calf but a Brydes whale. It came out of nowhere and surprised all of us. We started seeing multiple spouts in the area and we thought there might be 4 blue whales and 2 Brydes whales within a half mile of us. What a way to end this incredible day.
Just when you think you’ve seen it all on one of these trips events like this happen and you know that you never know what might happen in this special place.
More tomorrow,
Capt Art
