Seeing Baja by Sea

Sometimes the best introduction to an immense place is a small ship.

Hence our position on this partly cloudy morning aboard the 217-foot, 50-cabin Spirit of Endeavour cruise ship in the waters of the Gulf of California off La Paz. To the west, the Sierra de la Giganta mountains, the backbone of Baja California, lie in jagged silhouette. A few hundred yards off the coast, dozens of frigate birds, pelicans, osprey and boobies circle and swoop. At the water’s edge, sea lions honk and loll. Somewhere unseen below the water’s surface are gray whales, here for their annual winter migration.

And that’s only the beginning of the marine phenomena. Just off the starboard side floats another cruise ship, this one even smaller than ours, its passengers clutching binoculars and squinting toward the sea lions. For 15 minutes or so, before one ship slips north and the other south, the beasts around us behold dueling eco-cruises.

In the Caribbean, in the Mediterranean, in the waters off Alaska and near the Mexican ports of Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan, cruise ships commonly putter past one another on similar itineraries. But here in the waters between Baja California and mainland Mexico, where fishing boats and private yachts are plentiful and the desert runs right up to the shore, this competition is a novelty. The big attractions here are striking wildlife and a generally inaccessible patch of rare geography. By coming and going on a small ship, visitors avoid the fuss of camping and permit-seeking.

The Spirit of Endeavour, the vessel beneath my feet (chosen because it had a last-minute opening), is owned by Seattle-based Cruise West. The other cruise ship is the 152-foot, 37-cabin Sea Lion, owned by New York-based Lindblad Special Expeditions. (The Sea Lion has a twin named the Sea Bird elsewhere on these waters.)

The new competition means greater choice for travelers (Cruise West is more casual, Lindblad more professorial) and downward pressure on prices. That’s not to say this cruise is a rock-bottom bargain. With discounts for booking well in advance, Cruise West fares work out to $185 per day per person or more.

The season for both companies is December to April, when Baja temperatures are mildest and gray whales are on the move.

These ships’ territory--the gulf that is separated from the Pacific by the 800-mile-long Baja peninsula--includes La Paz, Baja California Sur’s capital, with a humming downtown and about 180,000 residents, as well as a handful of quirky coastal towns, miles of wild shoreline and waters dotted with more than 50 unpopulated islands. Both companies encourage hiking, birding, snorkeling and kayaking (and provide the equipment at no extra cost).

When it comes to the itinerary, there’s a great deal of flexibility too. Because winter winds gust and die unpredictably and because following wildlife is a top priority, both companies also give captains wide latitude to improvise on their ports of call.

The cruise aboard the Spirit of Endeavour begins--and ends--amid the considerable tourist traffic of the Cabo San Lucas waterfront.

The ship carries only about 100 passengers, and it spurns the cruise industry’s usual razzmatazz: There are no casinos, no floor shows, no assigned dinner seatings, no formal nights. Also no elevators, shipboard pool, bingo or shuffleboard. Except for the three deluxe cabins (with about 150 square feet each), guest cabins measure about 100 square feet, each with compact bathroom/shower. My twin bed seemed to be exactly as long as I am tall (6 feet), and I heard a few fellow passengers commenting about lack of foot room. On the other hand, because the ship is so small, every cabin has a porthole or window.

Between marine explorations, we can go ashore to see the 1697 mission in Loreto, to hear mariachis and dine on barbecued pig in Mulege, and to shop for textiles and pottery in downtown La Paz. We can get free Mexican beer and margaritas from 11 to 11 each day.

The crew is small, too--so small that the young “service representative” who makes your bed and tidies your bathroom will later be serving your dinner and washing the dishes.

In a week at sea, it wasn’t unusual to find the singer sweeping the lounge, the purser pouring someone’s orange juice, even the captain watering a plant in the hall. The non-officers share in a tip pool, to which passengers are encouraged to contribute $10 per day.

Still, for a passenger, it’s a good life.

This became clear soon after I boarded the Spirit of Endeavour on Jan. 8. In my cabin at the window two pairs of binoculars awaited. The next morning, after an evening churning around the east cape, we slipped into Isla Espiritu Santo’s Bonanza Bay and headed ashore to inspect cactuses, sip cold drinks on folding beach chairs and snorkel.

Another day brought us to an extinct volcano known as Isla Coronado, where I spent an hour kayaking, then another hour rock-hopping on the loose basalt. The day after that, in Concepcion Bay, yielded more kayaking--this time circumnavigating a rocky little island dotted with osprey nests and coated with enough guano to whitewash Staples Center.

Our meals were good, not great. At dinner we had a choice of three entrees (one vegetarian), with the thoughtful inclusion of wines from the Baja vineyards near Ensenada. One night we had very good lobster. But provisioning a ship in Baja apparently was problematic. One morning we had no milk, and I irrigated my cereal with plastic thimblefuls of half-and-half.

Between meals and rounds of activity, cruise coordinator Sally Wenning drew on her biology degree and experience as a naturalist in Alaska, Florida and Baja, gently tutoring us in Baja 101: The tall cactuses with arms are saguaros, she told us. The small birds with the sleek profile and broad wings are frigate birds. The gray whale’s gestation period is 13 months. The Gulf of California (also called the Sea of Cortes) was created by the same tectonic forces that keep the San Andreas Fault active.

Because the cruise emphasizes kayaking, snorkeling and other activities, I imagined a ship full of relatively young and vigorous passengers. Vigorous they were and companionable and diverse, from a retired Manhattan Project scientist from New Mexico to the Elvis impersonator and furniture restorer from New Orleans. Also on board were a pair of Bay Area carpenters, a former nun from Colorado and a Florida physician.

But as travel agents attest, the cost of these trips keeps many young people away. I paid $2,295 for a seven-night itinerary, plus a $546 single supplement. Even the cheapest fares on these ships run twice the price of a Mexican cruise on a Carnival or Royal Caribbean big ship, and the average age aboard the Spirit of Endeavour is older than on those ships. I seemed to be the only passenger younger than 40.

The free booze and talented singer-guitarist Jani Baldwin who performed in the lounge notwithstanding, nights aboard the Spirit of Endeavour wound down early. In fact, the most raucous point of the cruise was the evening the cruise coordinator recruited passenger Burton Fischman, communications professor and ham from Rhode Island, to don swim fins and join her in a demonstration of the mating dance of the blue-footed boobie.

Our big whale day began with the 90-minute bus ride through a pass in the Sierra de la Giganta, then across miles of flat, cactus-stubbled desert that finally yields to Magdalena Bay. When the morning fog finally burned off, we boarded a fleet of 14 pangas (seven-person launches piloted by local fishermen) and spent a few hours spotting flukes, dolphin fins and shorebirds.

Most of the other pangas buzzed about in the calmer shallows of the bay, bedeviling a lone whale that kept fleeing, not in the mood for any of the human contact depicted in brochure photos.

Some passengers were disappointed; others were ashamed for disturbing the beast. (Fishermen say the whales are more plentiful and less shy in February and March, after calving, than in January.)

I got lucky. I landed in a boat with a bold pilot, who abandoned the first whale and motored us into a fogbound position amid 3-foot swells at the bay’s mouth. It seemed a dicey spot, but the pilot swore that whales congregated there.

Sure enough, just as we were voting on whether to overrule the pilot and admit defeat, a gray breached, then another. It was a pod of whales, and we didn’t have to share it with the other pangas. We drew within 30 feet, maybe closer.

By the time we returned to the dock, the other passengers had boarded the buses and headed off to lunch in downtown Lopez Mateos, so we had to catch a ride to the restaurant in the bed of our pilot’s battered pickup. Those few minutes of bouncing along amid the crumpled cans of Negra Modelo would never appear in a company brochure, but this made it a proper adventure.

After drawing into Isla Partida’s Ensenada Grande bay, about 15 of us formed a hiking party (led by the cruise coordinator) and headed up a dry arroyo. At first we walked, but as the arroyo deepened, we were soon rock-scrambling and climbing.

One by one, daunted by the rocks and slope, fellow passengers halted and retreated to the beach. But eventually, we remaining 10 reached a viewpoint that’s every bit as brochure-worthy as the bed of the pickup truck was not.

On either side, slanting slopes formed a perfect V. In the foreground to one side loomed a 20-foot saguaro. And in the middle of the V, far off and surrounded by blue-green sea, floated the bright white Spirit of Endeavour. In the middle of such a scene, a traveler could sit and bask for a good long time.

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GUIDEBOOK

Getting Into the Gulf of California

Getting there: Alaska, Mexicana and Aero California airlines fly between LAX and Los Cabos International airport (which serves Cabo San Lucas). Round-trip fares for restricted coach tickets begin at $199 on those airlines.

Choosing a ship: The rates quoted below are brochure rates, which cruise lines often reduce in the same way hotels reduce their brochure rates when demand slackens. Both lines offer early booking discounts (up to $300 per person with Lindblad, up to $400 with Cruise West) for those who make deposits several months in advance. Rates here are per person, presuming double occupancy, including all meals, excluding air fare. Both companies take most of their bookings through travel agents, and both said they had a few cabins open in February and more in March and April.

Cruise West, telephone (800) 888-9378, fax (206) 441-4757, Internet https://www.cruisewest.com, is a second-generation family enterprise, having indirectly descended from an Alaskan bus tour company founded in 1946 by Chuck West, now the chairman emeritus of Cruise West; his son Richard G. West is now chairman and CEO. The company bought its first ship in 1989 and now operates seven, mostly in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and the San Francisco Bay area. The Spirit of Endeavour, built in 1983 and formerly known as the Newport Clipper, joined the Cruise West fleet in 1997.

Cruise West offers a seven-night “Sea of Cortes” trip (through April 15) and an 11-night “Cabo San Lucas to Copper Canyon” combination trip (which combines the ship experience with four nights on the Mexican mainland). Rates for the seven-night itinerary run $1,695-$3,445; for the 11-night itinerary, $3,455-$5,495.

Lindblad Special Expeditions, tel. (800) 397-3348 or (212) 765- 7740, Internet https://www.expeditions.com, has roots dating to the late 1950s, when entrepreneur Lars-Eric Lindblad began introducing sophisticated tour groups to such destinations as the Galapagos and the Seychelles. In 1979, Lars-Eric’s son, Sven-Olof Lindblad, took over the company’s “special expeditions” subsidiary. In 1982 he broke it apart from the senior Lindblad’s company (which no longer exists). The younger Lindblad shares his late father’s penchant for pioneering--the company is offering tours of Saudi Arabia for the first time this year--but most Special Expeditions trips rely on the company’s nine ships.

Lindblad offers two main Baja attractions: the “Among the Great Whales” trip (through March 18) and the “Copper Canyon and the Sea of Cortes” trip (through April 8).

For the eight-night whale trip (seven aboard ship), the company’s rates run $2,990-$4,430. For the seven-night “Copper Canyon and Sea of Cortes” itinerary (which includes four nights aboard ship), rates run $2,390-$3,300.