Mexican lagoons offer close-up look at whales

SAN IGNACIO LAGOON, Mexico - The gray whales making their way along the West Coast - heading north at this time of year - are part of an epic migration that can be witnessed from coastal bluffs and beaches, particularly the mothers and calves who cling close to shore and each other on their perilous approximate 6,000-mile journey to Alaskan waters from Mexico.

But for a really close-up interaction with these whales, people travel to Baja California to one of several lagoons along the Pacific Ocean side, where the mothers give birth to babies that emerge 15 feet long and weigh as much as a ton.

In the months following birth, as the infant whales are nursed in the protected bay waters, growing quickly and learning to swim, they also can be highly curious and friendly toward people, to the point of coming alongside small boats, popping their heads out of the water and allowing themselves to be touched and stroked.

Many who experience the lingering, up-close encounter with the whales describe it as transformative, even mystical, to have a wild animal approach them on its own terms, creating a bond of sorts - however fleeting - affirming a preciousness of life and shared existence.

“I consider it a spiritual event,” said Larry Tiller, a Bodega Bay man who has been to San Ignacio Lagoon nine times, including in March.

Tiller, a whale expert active with the Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, said “these are wild animals coming up to you. You’re not chasing them. Why would a wild animal bring its baby to us? That’s a question for the ages.”

The fact that the whales were hunted commercially until the 1940s and now are friendly lends a special dimension for visitors to the San Ignacio Lagoon, whose waters once ran red with blood. Hundreds of whales were killed there in the second half of 19th century until the lagoon became virtually empty of gray whales.

Norma Jellison, a Bodega Bay woman who coordinates the whale watch at Bodega Head who also has been to San Ignacio, said, “It’s life-altering when you look into the eye of a whale that’s as big as a baseball, or touch (the whale). You figure we hunted these whales to extinction almost three times and yet the mother will push the baby up to the boat with these people who killed them.”

Nowadays, the millennium-old migration to the Mexican lagoons, which serve as nursery and mating grounds, has been re-established with healthy numbers of the whales. The lagoons are a sort of spring break opportunity for the cetaceans.

“You see mating behavior, breeching like crazy. They’re having a blast. It’s all about sex; it’s warm water, sheltered, no predation going on,” Jellison said.

Protected by sandbars from the pounding surf, the relatively shallow San Ignacio Lagoon is more than 400 miles south of the U.S. border, surrounded by desert and salt mounds that were once eyed for a massive salt factory by Mitsubishi Corp. before the Mexican government placed it off limits, to protect the whales.

It’s now part of a larger biosphere, with the whale sanctuary recognized by the United Nations as a world heritage site.

A steady ecotourism business has been spawned by the “friendly whale phenomenon” first observed in San Ignacio Lagoon in the 1970s. But the numbers of boats and visitors is restricted in the 60-square-mile body of water to keep the animals from being harassed or disturbed.

There are about a half-dozen whale “camps” set up for paying visitors, offering cabins or tents, with meals provided and a guided tour to see the whales.

On a visit to San Ignacio Lagoon in March, a small Mexican Coast Guard boat was stationed at the entrance to a whale observation zone where only 16 small boats or “pangas” are allowed at any one time, and for only 90 minutes per boat.

It took little time for a mother and calf to approach a drifting, idling boat carrying tourists as the excited passengers called out to the whales and splashed the water next to the boat. At times, it was surrounded on three sides by pairs of adult and baby whales within 100 feet or so.

Occasionally the mothers would push the baby whales away, bump the boat, or surface with an exhalation that sprayed the spectators. One playful baby whale popped its head out of the water, opened its mouth and allowed the visitors to touch the bristly baleen inside.

“We’re like a toy, like a rubber duckie in their big bathtub,” observed Karen Taylor, a retired National City police officer aboard the boat.

Later, after dinner, she described the connection she felt with the huge, intelligent marine mammals.

“They react to you,” she asserted. “They can really sense our joy and our happiness in our voices. That really attracts them.”

Caroline Sias, a massage therapist from Vashon Island, Wash., summed up her feelings after her first day in the lagoon:

“There’s something so joyful about being with the whales,” she said.