Boca de Soledad
Bright streaks from a red-orange dawn light found the Sea Bird rocking easily at her quiet anchorage in the “mouth of solitude” or Boca de Soledad. Out here at the northern edge of Isla Santa Magdalena, thousands of sea birds are starting their day, leaving night roosts and heading out to look for small fish. We too are leaving our secure and comfortable ship and heading into the choppy ocean waters to look for- well not fish…but cetaceans. It is the time of the year that the California grey whales come into the lagoons of Baja California to birth their young and for others to mate and continue the long tradition of these remarkable animals.
At about 11 thousand miles round trip, the migration of the grey whale is the longest of any mammal. Their summers are spent in the high arctic, feeding on benthic amphipods that thrive in the soft sediments on the ocean bottom. In October as the ice pack begins to move south, the whales move south too, and swim both night and day for two months to reach the protected lagoons of Baja California. The pregnant females arrive first, and it is those whales with their newborn calves that we have come here to see. Weighing in at 2000 lbs and 15 feet long at birth, these babies are special indeed!
Bright streaks from a red-orange dawn light found the Sea Bird rocking easily at her quiet anchorage in the “mouth of solitude” or Boca de Soledad. Out here at the northern edge of Isla Santa Magdalena, thousands of sea birds are starting their day, leaving night roosts and heading out to look for small fish. We too are leaving our secure and comfortable ship and heading into the choppy ocean waters to look for- well not fish…but cetaceans. It is the time of the year that the California grey whales come into the lagoons of Baja California to birth their young and for others to mate and continue the long tradition of these remarkable animals.
At about 11 thousand miles round trip, the migration of the grey whale is the longest of any mammal. Their summers are spent in the high arctic, feeding on benthic amphipods that thrive in the soft sediments on the ocean bottom. In October as the ice pack begins to move south, the whales move south too, and swim both night and day for two months to reach the protected lagoons of Baja California. The pregnant females arrive first, and it is those whales with their newborn calves that we have come here to see. Weighing in at 2000 lbs and 15 feet long at birth, these babies are special indeed!
