Exploratory Orca Expedition
Baja, Mexico, May 19 - 25, 2019
We did it! Orcas are the ultimate prize for any wildlife photographer and it is a dream of mine to try and see orcas in every body of water possible. Of course getting in the water is prohibited in many places, and with the way things are going, it will be like that everywhere around the world. But until then, going to try and find as many exciting places for this beautiful wild animals.

One of the spots on my radar was Baja. My buddy Jorge with Pelagic Safaris had a couple of really good season’s photographing them and I decided to try and set up an exploratory trip with them to find them. It was such a game of chance and luck, but I am so glad we gave it a shot. I planned out a five day trip to try and find them and we hit pay dirt on day one. After 8 hours of searching we were headed in when we got the call. Minutes from our port, orcas were spotted in the area. We turned around and headed out to try and find them. It didn’t take long, a family of about 15 orcas were breaking the surface in front of our boat. It was a sight to see.

We all grabbed our gear as fast as we could, lined up our boat and made that first drop… it was a big pod. There was three young orcas in this pod and two very big male orcas. It was one of the greatest things I have ever seen in my life. The orcas swam past us, we all fired image after image. I was on fire, a total dream come true seeing them in Baja waters. We spent about two hours with them before we said goodbye. The orcas had grown tired of us so we allowed them to go on with their day.

Sadly, that was the only day we encountered them. We heard a report about them the following day, but they were gone by the time we arrived. We did spend an hour with a mating ball of hundreds of mobula rays and we had a quick encounter with a massive whale shark, so over all it was an amazing week of wildlife. I am looking forward to my next encounter with orcas, which will be in Norway vs. Mexico, but I am also looking forward to next season and my return to this very special place for another shot at these Baja orcas.

Here is a photo album of our week off Baja, hope you enjoy.

Images captured with a Canon 5D Mark 4 with a Canon 8-15mm fisheye lens, in an Aquatica housing.