I saw whales!
Hmm...I'm not sure if that fully conveys my emotions.
I saw whales! In the wild!
Better.
I saw whales! In the wild! Whales that are 5 times bigger than the boat I was in. Whales that could have easily upset the boat we were in, if they had been so inclined. But instead were jumping and singing and meandering.
Can you tell I'm pretty stoked about this experience???
I'm still struggling to find words strong enough to describe the experience of being so close to them. I took a tour with Pacifico Adventures, from Punto Veleros in Los Organos. If you get a chance to go, you should definitely take it-it was well worth every centimos. Our guides spoke both English & Spanish fluently and both were scientist, doing research into whale behavior. I feel like I've been on the ecotourism kick for a while now, but I haven't been disappointed with any of my experiences thus far.
Anyway, you always need a bit of luck to see whales, as humpbacks generally are not radio tagged. Instead, researchers identify each whale by their unique tails. Much less invasive and painful for the animals but much more difficult for tracking precise movements.
Luckily, we heard a tip that there were a mother & calf nearby and we went off to find them. We never saw the mother emerge, but could estimate her size from the distance between her blowhole and dorsal fin. The calf, however, jumped out of the water a few times - enough for our guides to determine that it's a male. It was such an incredible sight, I wanted to break into spontaneous clapping at the majesty of the moment.
I find it interesting that no one really knows why these whales jump out of the water. Some people hypothesize that it's to demonstrate strength in order to attract mates. Others think that calves do it to strengthen their muscles for their long migration journey. But no one really knows for sure. In fact, there are many things we don't know about these animals.
After observing the mother & calf for some time, we headed to another area where we just caught a male coming up for air. Our guides were really excited to drop the underwater microphone so that we could hear him sing.
We also don't know much about their songs. Scientists have determined that it is indeed a song-with distinctive repeating patterns, much like our chorus and verses. And they "sing" different patterns at different times of the season. When one whale changes the pattern, the others in the community change as well.
Only the males sing, but scientists are still not sure why (besides communicating with an alien probe in future in a popular sci-fi series!) Some think it might be to attract mates, but others are starting to think it might be to coordinate the males to go looking for females. Part of humpback courtship involves some pretty violent fighting between the males, so maybe it is a kind of challenge call between them.
We were lucky enough to race alongside a pod of dolphins as well, which was another sight to behold.
All in all, this trip was amazing and should not be missed!
