Tag: whale watching

Back from Baja

We arrived home on the afternoon of March 28 having logged 3012 miles over the course of 23 days: three of us, Joann, myself and our dog Carson. We were a little concerned about taking the dog, but Baja turned out to be quite dog friendly. Along the way we had some amazing adventures which I will share in the days ahead as I sort through the many photos I captured.

Before we could obtain our Mexican Tourist Cards (FMM) we had to make a stop in San Diego to renew our passports. If you are planning on traveling to Mexico, check your passport. You need to have at least three months on your passport to apply for an FMM. We discovered this just a few weeks before our trip and we had to scramble to get our passports renewed.

On the trip south we decided to take a quick detour to Anza Borrego to check out the wildflowers. We were not disappointed.

Our traveling rig consists of a Fourwheel Pop-Up Camper on a Toyota Tacoma. The camper is outfitted with a refrigerator, heater and cook top. There is no toilet or shower on board, but we’re comfortable taking a shovel out in the woods (or desert) if we are boondocking or taking advantage of facilities including showers in established campgrounds. We also have the rig set up to carry two kayaks.

For planning, both prior to the trip and on the road, we used the app iOvelander for locating facilities and Maps.Me for route planning. We discovered a hack that let us import the iOverlander pins into Maps.Me, which proved to be quite useful when we were offline without cell phone signal or Wi-Fi. We also found the Baja California Road and Recreation Atlas from Benchmark Maps useful as well as Google Maps, when we had a cell phone signal.

And of course, sharing travel information with fellow travelers is also fun and informative.

Some of the highlights along the trip included a fabulous lunch with a bottle of wine at Encuentro Guadalupe shortly after crossing the border, camping in the cactus gardens near Catavina, and whale watching in San Ignacio Lagoon.

We had our share of fabulous sunsets and sunrises and we managed to get our kayaks on the water at Bahia Conception and Gonzaga Bay.

Over the course of the trip, we spent 23 nights in camper. The southern most point in our trip was Playa Coyote on Bahia Conception. Three weeks is just not enough time to see much of Baja. We’re already thinking about our next trip. On a couple of nights, we were happy to have the camper as protection from fierce winds. Stay tuned. I’ll be sharing more in the days ahead.

Whale Watching: San Ignacio Lagoon

We made reservations ahead of time to go whale watching on San Ignacio Lagoon with Antonio’s Ecotours. We arrived on the afternoon of March 14 and set up camp, which means just putting the top up on the camper. The drive from San Ignacio is 48 km with 17 of it on gravel. Our rig handles the gravel road just fine, although we did hear comments about the washboard road from people in passenger vehicles.

Our campsite was on a bluff overlooking the lagoon. There was one other campsite occupied when we arrived. We had reservations for two nights camping and the whale watching tour. We had reserved an afternoon whale watching tour on the 15th. Upon arriving, though, we discovered that we could join an earlier whale watching tour, so we signed up for the 8 AM tour.

Camping facilities at Antono’s are rather spartan. There is no electricity or water at the sites. There are composting toilets and a solar heated bucket shower. The staff is very friendly and accommodating. There are also a number of small cottages available to rent. We had dinner in the restaurant with live music before dinner.

While enjoying the view from our campground we were entertained by a pair of Osprey that were wheeling around just overhead.

In the morning we were at the camp headquarters at 7:40 to get outfitted with life jackets. Then we climbed aboard one of the pangas for the 20-minute ride to the whale watching location. I had both my Sony RX100 and a GoPro with me to document the event. Here’s a short video:

It’s just simply amazing to be sitting in one of these small boats with the Grey Whales cruising by, most often pairs with mothers and calves. They will occasionally come up so close to the boat you can reach out and touch them. In the morning, with the sun shining, the spouts would create rainbows. We spent 90 minutes with the whales, and then it was back to land. It’s astounding to think that while we were here as friendly observers, 150 years ago these animals were hunted.

Watching the sun set over the lagoon was beautiful.

What Memo? And Whales!

Thursday, May 3. Up at 5:30 to take care of some business before joining my kayaking friends for a paddle out the Golden Gate. After taking care of business, a conference call, I hopped in my truck and drove to our intended launch site, Horseshoe Cove, near the Golden Gate Bridge. When I arrived I was greeted with “Didn’t you get the message that the paddle was cancelled?” It seems with the weather prediction for wind the official BASK trip had been cancelled. That left five of us with our boats and weather that looked manageable. We huddled up and discussed the prospects. If the predicted wind did come up, it would blow us back in the Gate.

Paddle out the Golden Gate to Point Bonita.
Susan playing in a blow hole.
Thar she blows! Whale sighting
Can you find the whale? The black spot to the left of the two kayaks.
Yours truly at Black Sand Beach, our lunch stop.

With the requisite radio check and safety talk, we launched our boats for a “non-BASK” paddle. We went out the Gate, and hugged the coast along the north side looking for opportunities to play in the rocks. I’m a bit shy about rock gardening, not wishing to bash my wooden boat into rocks, and thinking I’ll need to get a plastic boat for rock gardening. Playing in the rocks looks like so much fun. I did find a few spots where I could poke in and out of the rocks confidently. We stopped at Black Sand Beach for lunch, and then continued on to towards Point Bonita. We found a blow hole not far from the point, and took turns nosing our boats into the hole and taking a shower in salt spray. An impressive amount of spray for just a little wave action. Then we headed out to the point where we waved to the tourists lining the railing at the light house.

For our homeward leg we took advantage of the wind to blow us back under the bridge. We went for the deeper water making a straight shot for the bridge.  It was there that we saw two whales spout. We first sighted them when they were a couple of hundred yards ahead of us. They closed in on us fast, passing between our boats.  We also saw porpoise, sea lions, seals and a huge flock of grebes. We made quick time returning to our launch site with the wind and current in our favor. We launched at 10 am and were off the water at 2:30 covering 8.9 Miles.

About the time we were pulling our boats out of the water blue shy was showing and the wind was picking up. I seems we were just ahead of the predicted wind. You can view more photos from our adventure here and view the track of our paddle here, including a way point that shows the whale sighting. A remarkable paddle for those of us that didn’t get the memo.

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