Whale-Watching
in Baja
By Dave Krieg & Anne Kiehl
Gray Whales spend most of
their time in the icy waters near Alaska. But they are not dummies; they
regularly spend their winters in nice secluded lagoons on the Pacific coast of
Baja California -- making love and birthing babies. The most secluded of these
Mexican resorts is Laguna de San Ignacio -- and that is where we went to meet
them. In a small boat half their size!
We are offering to show you 12 of our
photographs from among the two rolls we shot in February 2000. You will be able
to select to see any or all of them.
This part of our web-site works like this:
When you click at the bottom of this page you will go to a page with a set of
small "thumbnail pictures." You can give a single
"left-click" on any of these pictures to get a full size version of
the picture. Click the back arrow of your browser to return to the thumbnails.
I haven't found a way to add comments to the thumbnails or the big pictures,
but they pretty well tell their own story.
The two guys are Antonio, our captain, and his
English-speaking spokesman. Antonio has the best technique in the business. On
approaching whales, he stops at just the right distance, so as not to harrass
them. Then, one or more whales get curious and come over to visit his boat.
"Ours" approached us repeatedly, surfaced alongside us, swam under us
and actually seemed to want us to touch him!
The beach scene shows the boat we used.
You can see "our" whale visiting a
nearby boat.
And, yes, Anne did really touch the whale --
but I couldn't quite get that picture.
Click
Here to see the thumbnails. It took 10 seconds to download on my system.