Day five of my Log of the Searcher Natural History Tour Around the Baja by Boat January 27, 2011

Well, we are starting an another day at Laguna San Ignacio. After another great breakfast by Charles the chef, we got ready for another panga ride. The pangas belong to the ecotourism group Kuyima. There is interesting meaning to the word Kuyima. Here is a quote from the book "eye of the whale: epic passage from Baja to Siberia" by Dick Russell. "Kuyima simply means two things -the whale could light up the darkness or it could dance in the clouds." I really recommend this book for all to read, it is available on Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/Eye-Whale-Epic-Passage-Siberia/dp/0684866080.

We continue to have encounters with the mother/Gray whale pairs which came close to the boat and one even went under the boat.. In the picture, the whale is going under the boat upside down. You will notice that there are only several short deep creases on the throat to allow for expansion of the throat during suction feeding as opposed to the humpback whale, which has multiple creases on their throat.

Touching

Happy ship-mates

There  She Blows

Calf

Calf resting on mother

Gray whale Fluke

We also encountered bottle-nosed dolphins and birds.

Frigatebirds in Rigging

Brown Pelican

Royal Terns

Bottle-nosed Dolphins

Surf Scoter

Later in the afternoon, we all took a beach walk, which had some interesting sightings.

Dunes

Skeleton on the beach

Animal footprints in the sand

shell in the sand

There was another great sunset as we now started our trip south toward toward Cabo San Lucas and make the turn into the Gulf of California. There was sadness among everybody on leaving the close company of the gray whales and feelings toward them. As I stated before, this was a very moving experience and I highly recommended it to everyone.