Day 6: Laguna San Ignacio
We arrived in San Agnacio early this morning, and anchored about 3 miles from the lagoon where we will whale watch. Because these are breeding grounds for the gray whale, the area is tightly restricted. Ships even our size must anchor well outside the lagoon, and we had to then Zodiac to the interior of the lagoon where we were met by locals. We then had to transfer to Pangas, small dories owned by local fishermen. The fishermen will be our guides today and tomorrow.
The water going out was very rough and we got soaked. The whales have been slow to return to the lagoon to give birth this year. Usually by this time there are 200 or so, this year only 30 adults. We saw one whale early on breach but was able to catch the end only. We saw several other adults as well as cows with calves, but none were ready to approach close to our boat.
After lunch on board the ship, the afternoon session started with very calm seas for the Zodiac return to the lagoon. We headed out on the Pangas and what looked like a promising afternoon for photos turned out to be a bust for us. All the other boats seemed positioned well to have extremely close encounters to the whales while our driver seemed to take us to where the whales weren’t. We did see several whales, and even had one hit our boat, but the photo ops were few and far between. We are going to be certain not to have the sane driver tomorrow! The afternoon on the whole was pretty disappointing- we got to watch most of the other boats petting and photographing whales up close. New friends, Steven and Lucy, had a similar experience on one of the other boats. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for tomorrow.
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