When we awoke this morning we were still sailing towards our destination, Magdalena Bay. Today is what many of us have been waiting for, the first opportunity to observe California gray whales. It was obvious the anticipation of seeing our first gray whale of the expedition was in all of us, as almost every other question from our guests had to do with how long it would be before we got to enter Magdalena Bay. There was a bit of anxiety as we saw a huge fogbank hanging over the water at the entrance of the bay, but upon our arrival the fog lifted as our ship entered the Entrada, the opening to Mag Bay. We still had hours to sail before we would arrive at the nursery of these desert whales, but that did not prevent the hopeful eyes of the guests from searching the waters for signs of our prize.
Our time spent traveling was not however void of excitement, and our first encounter with Mag Bay wildlife was a few bottlenose dolphins that rode our bow wave and gave us excellent views of these playful marine mammals. Then we entered the narrow and very shallow channel that would guide us to the main body of the bay. Here with binoculars at the ready, we searched the mangrove trees along the shore. Herons, pelicans, and a host of shorebirds waded among the mangrove roots searching for food. Even a coyote was spotted fishing for skates stranded in the tides pools.
As the narrow passage widened once again the anticipation rose and then our first gray was spotted. Almost immediately another was seen, then another, and another and there ahead of us were whales everywhere. In this part of the bay we are not allowed to stop the ship to whale watch, however our slow speed enabled us incredible views of cow calf pairs that we passed within feet of our vessel. Everywhere there were whales and our guests ran from one side of the vessel to the other not wanting to miss one single sighting. We were truly in a place like no other for watching whales.
By the time we made anchorage it was almost five in the evening, so we headed to the beach for some time ashore. We hiked among pristine sand dunes and found our inner child as some of us ran down dunes with abandonment.
Speaking of our inner child, I have a suspicion that tonight might be like when we were kids the night before Christmas. Sleep might be harder to come by as we think about what tomorrow has in store for us, our first inflatable boat outings among the gray whales.
