Day off San Ignacio Whale Watching

Yesterday was a day off for me and I did almost nothing all day. I did run into another biker from Holland that had just ridden into town coming from Argentina. We talked about the ride and the routes as well as safety. I also heard today that a biker got hit somewhere here in Baha in the last week. I did not see any official story but a number of people have told me it happened. It is always a fear down here and everywhere for that matter. I try to ignore it.

Today however, I had a fun day, I went out to see the whales. For the last couple of days I was waffling back and forth about going out to see them or not and finally this morning after breaking camp I went out to see them. It was worth it.

We rode out to the lagoon from San Ignacio in a van and that took about an hour or a bit more. Then we jumped into pangas the small Mexican boats and headed right out into the lagoon. After a short 15 minute ride we arrived in the viewing area. We slowly cruised around watching whales blowing and diving. A few were spy hopping which is when they hold their heads out of the water and just look around the area. I did not see any breech today. We watched this for about a half hour and I was thinking that I have seen better whale shows out at the islands in San Francisco. Then one of the grey whales approached our boat as we drifted. It had been playing with another boat earlier and it just moved over to our boat to check us out.

We all took turns touching the whale and getting lots of close up pics of a grey whale. Then it was my turn to touch it. I started giving it a back rub and it loved it. The harder I rubbed it the more she liked it. Then she rolled over on her back so I could do her belly too. I was going to town rubbing her real hard and she rolled back over and blew on the other people in the boat then practically climbed into the boat with us wanting me to continue rubbing her head. It was a blast. Then we had a big wet kiss and I stopped rubbing her and she moved off looking for another boat to get a back rub from.

I took a lot of pics but the whale was so close it was hard to get good shots. Now how often to you get to say that. I took some closeups of the barnacles on her and of her blow hole and her eye and flipper and stuff like that. I did not get a pic of me kissing her cause I was kissing her and it is hard to take a selfie with yourself and a 40 ton whale cause my arms are just too short. Great day even though I was not on my bike. Tomorrow I hit the road again even in the 95 degree heat. Not sure where I might end up for the night tomorrow but such is the life of a wandering pobrecito.