Wednesday, 22 February, Guerrero Negro Whale Watching.

Today is the day we have been looking forward to for a very long time. Mario's is famous for their Whale Watching Tours.
This time of year the Gray Whales are still mating but more exciting are birthing here in the nearby lagoon and in a couple more along the coast.
We met in the restaurant at 7:30 for a briefing.  One of the things that Mario's is famous for is their Whale Watching Tours and we signed up about a month ago.  They told us all about the whales.  The Lagoon in this area as well as about 3 others along the coast here, are where the whales come to breed and to birth.  

The woman above is holding a model of a gray whale that is bing passed around.  They also passed along a section of its mouth that filters out all the microscopic food that they get off the bottom of the ocean.  they do not have teeth.
She told us about their breeding habits.  The male's member is called......wait for it.....Pink Floyd?!!! All the males circle the female and she gets to choose the first one she mates with.  Once she chooses, a couple other males swim under her and hold her up so the mating can take place.  It only takes seconds.  After that, the rest of the males take their turn with her.
After the briefing the 8 of us; Lori & John, Chuck & Laurie; Jen & Nickalee, and Rob & I all loaded into a private van.  It was really nice.  Everyone else at the briefing climbed onto a school bus. We actually stopped and picked up another nice young man named Jacob along the way.  He was staying at a nearby hotel.
Along the way out we drove past the salt flats.  They were huge with huge piles of Salt.

 See how huge this pile is..those are bulldozers on top of the hill moving sand around.

These are bags of salt.  I think they are a poorer grade.

Once past them we finally got to the boats.  Once again, our group had its own boat.  We grabbed life vests

And then climbed onto the boat

On the way out we passed by big shipping markers that had Osprey nests on them.  

Then we went by these huge platforms, I think they were used to tie up big ships, but the tops were covered with seals sleeping and moaning at each other.

We circled around them a couple times and then

Headed out to sea.

It took a little while, but then we started seeing whales.

 Big whales

Near by

 Above is a mother and the part sticking out of the water is the baby's face

This is a face.

 Then 4 of them started playing with us and looking at us

 closer and closer 

And even let us pet them.  It was amazing!

All together we were out there for about 4 hours.  And whales were not the only things that came to visit us.  We also saw a seal, dolphins and a close up of....

A seagull who landed on our bow and stayed for about 15 min.  That was also fun.

Soon it was time to head back in.

Back by the seals

And back by the salt flats/piles.

Sooooo amazing.

That night we had a wonderful bar b q of shrimp from Santispac, Clams from here, yummy salads and other delicious things cooked and contributed by everyone else.  Since it was sooo cold, we all ate in our rig.  It was fun.

Even Jacob joined us for dinner.  In fact, he is going to continue his journey down south with Jennifer and Nickalee.  It was a magical day and a really fun night.