Day 6 – Blue whales

Day 6 – Blue whales

27/03/2019 Aus Von andiline

I had known before going to Loreto that I wanted to go blue whale watching. Turned out that my new friends Kim and Bob wanted to come so we were on the same boat together with another german-speaking, Susanne. I like that the tour company is not trying to put as many people on the boat as possible because there were more boats out – which turned out to be good for us. Not only made it whale watching more comfortable but because the brand new motor of our boat broke down towards the end of the tour and Kim needed to be at the airport at a certain time- So we had to switch boats to get her back in time to catch her plane. There was constant communication between the boats and our captain kept shouting ‚Tequila, Tequila!‘ in his micro. When we asked why he was asking for something to drink 😉 he told us that this was the captain of the other boat. 😀

What I read only this morning is that there are strict rules for blue whale watching in the Sea of Cortez. I can definitely say that those rules are not in place for the grey whales. With the blue whales there is a ‚passive watching‘-policy, meaning that the motor needs to be off. It is not allowed to drive with/follow the whales if the distance is lower than 100 m, if there is a mother with a calf then driving with/following them is not allowed at all. Chasing them is forbidden. And rightfully so! Our captain just left the motor out most of the time and we watched for whales. Towards the end we were really very, very lucky because twice a whale came up right on the boat and dove in front of the boat and twice a whale came up and swam by about 10 m from our boat. These animals are sooooooo huge!!!! You can’t really see that on the pics. I don’t know how many different blue whales we have seen but I estimate between 3 and 5. In between there is a pic of Kim eating the coconut cooky that Bob had baked for her. To end up the wonderful day we stopped at a beautiful beach with crystal clear waters… it was sooo beautiful. Not really surprised that this area is a national park. And here are the pics…