Where the Whales Are

Don’t call me Ishmael. In seven days of kayaking Baja California during whale season, I saw no whales.

As I planned the trip I was hoping to see them. But I was equally interested in A) not spending too much and B) having a wilderness experience. When I found an affordable trip that included two nights on a barrier island north of Magdalena Bay, Mexico, on the Pacific side of the Baja peninsula, I thought I’d found the perfect compromise.

After all, my outfitter had encountered gray whales in this spot in years past (and in the weeks after my trip, he encountered them again).

And so we came, we paddled, we camped, and we scanned the horizon day and night, looking for whale tails and waiting for the sound of a 35-ton mammal exhaling. To the south, in the heart of Magdalena Bay, the beasts were up to their usual tricks, surrounded by admiring humans who were able to motor out to them in skiffs called pangas. Yet in our neighborhood, no whales.

El Nino? Probably not. Whale-watching outfitters and marine scientists say this year’s thousands of migrating gray whales are following the same general patterns that migrating whales of past generations have. In fact, because they eat very little during their migration from the north, authorities say gray whales are far less susceptible to the dietary disruptions that El Nino’s unusual currents have forced on other species.

I was living dangerously to start with, choosing a relatively remote location and going without a panga, and I came up empty.

So how did I deal with the 35-ton missing element in my trip? The same same way groups of human beings around the world have been handling myriad disappointments throughout the ages: I waxed philosophical. Travel means venturing into the unknown, and when your trip depends upon the workings of the natural world, there are no ironclad guarantees.

Another lesson in this: If seeing a whale up close is your foremost goal in Baja, a kayak is optional.

The biggest companies that specialize in whale encounters, such as Baja Expeditions, Baja Discovery and Special Expeditions, generally use pangas, or motorized Zodiac rafts, to bring customers closer to whales. Some groups return to kayaks after their encounter by panga; others retreat to cruise ships or African-style safari camps, or to more basic beach camping.

Together, these and other companies take thousands of American whale-seekers south each winter, the vast majority to specially designated areas of Magdalena Bay and San Ignacio Lagoon, Mexico, both on the Pacific coast of the Baja peninsula. They routinely deliver passengers within a few yards of surfacing grays.

Adult gray whales frequently reach 45 feet in length and weigh 35 tons. Each winter they migrate south as much as 10,000 miles, beginning in the cold currents in and near the Bering Sea and winding up in a handful of lagoons and sheltered bays in Baja California. The whale’s gestation cycle is about 13 months, which means adult females mate one year, calve the next, mate the year after, and so on. After suffering enormous losses to whalers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the gray whale population in the Pacific is now estimated at 21,000.

The biggest land-based Baja outfitter, with an estimated 2,000 travelers yearly, is San Diego-based Baja Expeditions (telephone [800] 843-6967 or [619] 581-3311, fax [619] 581-6542, Web site https://www.bajaex.com. Founded in 1974, the company offers kayak-and-camp trips (on both sides of the peninsula); cruises on the seven-cabin, 80-foot Don Jose (also on both sides); and deluxe “African-safari-style camping” at Magdalena Bay and San Ignacio Lagoon. Prices range from $950 for a seven-day kayak-camping trip to $1,795 for a 10-day cruise on the Don Jose. Most Magdalena Bay trips run from late January to mid-March; San Ignacio trips are conducted from late January to early April. Most gulf-side trips take place after the gray whales are gone, in March and April.

San Diego-based Baja Discovery (tel. [800] 829-2252 or [619] 262-0700, fax [619] 422-6373, Web site https://www.bajadiscovery.com), founded in the 1970s, books about 350 people yearly to see whales in San Ignacio Lagoon between late January and late March. The most popular itinerary (sold out this year) is a five-day trip, with a charter flight south from Tijuana, three nights tent-camping by San Ignacio Lagoon, whale-watching from pangas, one hotel night, and then the return flight. Price: $1,565 per person. The company offers a few other itineraries on the gulf side, too.

New York-based Special Expeditions (tel. [800] 397-3348 or [212] 765-7740, fax [212] 265-3770, Web site https://www.specialexpeditions.com) builds its trips around cruise-ship lodgings, specialist lecturers and emphasis on natural history. Active in Baja for 17 years, the company sends an estimated 2,000 customers there yearly aboard sister ships Sea Bird and Sea Lion, each 152 feet long with 35 guest cabins.

From January through March, the company offers a nine-day “Among the Great Whales” itinerary, in which ships visit Magdalena Bay and the Gulf of California. Brochure prices start at $2,690 per person, double occupancy, excluding air fare to and from La Paz. In December, January, March and April, there’s an eight-day trip, “The Copper Canyon and the Sea of Cortez,” that splits time between the canyon (hotel lodgings) and a ship. Prices start at $1,980, excluding air fare into La Paz and out of Chihuahua, Mexico. In March and April, the company hosts an eight-day Gulf of California tour, “Exploring Baja’s Infinite Mysteries”; prices start at $2,190, excluding air fare into La Paz and out of Guaymas, Mexico.

By all accounts, a whale encounter can be exhilarating. But some conservationists worry about the long-term effects of putting tourists in such close quarters with whales, and some travelers may find the experience a little less wild than expected. Demand for whale time is high, and though many operators agree not to cluster more than two pangas per whale, Gary Cotter, program coordinator for diving and cruises at Baja Expeditions, says, “We’ve actually witnessed some places with five or six or seven skiffs all trying to interact with one whale at one time.”

The companies report that, despite many consumer questions about El Nino, bookings have been strong. Trips have openings in the next month. But to get a good choice of whale-watching trips, reservation agents say, it’s not a bad idea to make bookings as early as September or October 1998 for a trip in February or March of 1999.