Baja Pelagic Expedition Trip Report 2024

Baja, Mexico
May 5 - 12, 2024

Monday May 6- first day out on the water. Capt. Cano picked us up on his pangas in front of our hotel which was good. Always nice, walking out of the hotel room, onto the beach and right into the boat.

8:20am - Conditions were nice, wind was 4-5 knots. A little bumpy but not bad. We went South for the day. The further out we went, the water began to flatten out. It was a bit cloudy this morning but I think the sun will burn this off. Our captain got a feeling we should go off shore and we decided to follow his gut. Let’s see what the day gives us. 

9:38am - male sperm whale. He avoided the boat. And dropped down and out. 

He came up again and we sent up the drone. I snapped some topside shots of the whale. Damn he was big.

He was hunting so he stayed down for almost an hour. We decided to keep going to see what else we could find.

We stopped to swim with a pod of bottlenose dolphins right now. We did also have two silky sharks show up with the dolphins. One was covered in pilot fish and stayed low. The second one was much more curious and came up to Emily, she managed to grab some footage of it. 

Always fun finding predatory sharks when you are not expecting to see them. 

Finished the day with some mobula rays. They were in green water by the coast and the vis was really bad, so we didn’t stay long. 

Overall a good start to the trip. 

May 7 - day two. Went out about 8am. Flat calm seas but very overcast. It’s 11am and the sun still has not burned it off. 

We had an orca report that was south of us. We tried to find them but did not. The next report will pan out for us, I have no doubt. 

We are now headed back north over a deep water canyon where the report of orcas came from. So far nada.

A blue whale was found in the north and is headed south. Hoping to run into it along the way.

We finished the day swimming with a massive mating school of mobula rays. These huge groups are so much fun to swim with, and a great way to finish the day. 

May 8, 2024 - Day Thee. The sun is out finally. It’s strong though going to be a scorcher. Very little wind so it’s nice out. 

Luck is on our side… Started the day with around four sperm whales. Four big males were found. We have the directional hydrophone now so we will be using it to try and get closer to these guys. 

I managed some fluke shots today which I’m super happy about.

For water time… the male sperm whales are not interested in people like the females and calves are. 

We spent the entire day with them, and tried a few close up surface shots of them. Unfortunately they were not interested at all in us. So we resigned to just getting drone footage of them and snapping topside images whenever we got lucky with close encounters.

May 9, 2024- day four. Heading up north today. A bit windier, but we got full sun again so it’s going to be a warm one. Going to search for the Os out here and then if weather allows we are going to visit the sea lion colony. 

That is always a good time. It’s mating season so the males are a bit aggressive and guard their females jealously.  

Hoping the weather cooperates. 

We spent about an hour with the sea lions. It was fun. There is always one or two sea lions that are playful, which makes photo opportunities really good.

We left them to continue our search for Orcas. Still no reports from our other friends out at sea. 

Sea lions are the highlight of the day. 

Winds kicked in hard at the end. Surprised us all. So we called it a day. 

On our way back to the marina, the bay was full of kite boarders. They 

May 10, 2024 - day five. Bright blue sky. No wind this morning, rumors are it’s going to pick up this afternoon. 

Following a blue whale right now. But this guy wants nothing to do with us so it disappears fast. 

We are just trying to get close enough for drone shots, but it’s dropping really fast and so unpredictable where it will surface.

Too fast for a drone. Filming challenges continue.

We found a mom and a calf blue whale. These are the same pair that friends of mine found the day before and they had an epic time with them. 

The day was magic! We spent the next three hours with the mom and a very curious and playful calf that kept passing very close to the boat. Close enough for images which was so good. I have heard of blue whales doing this, but I have never experienced it.

It was the stuff dreams were made of and what I had been wishing for for many years.

It was finally our turn. No words can describe how amazing the day was and how special these animals are.

Tomorrow is our final day… hoping for an amazing best day, last day!

May 11, 2024- Day Six. Our final day at sea. Another beautiful day with beautiful blue skies and no wind. 

We quickly found a blue whale and a humpback whale in the channel. Not really trying to photograph them. Just stopping to drop the hydrophone and listen for the animals and see if we hear any orcas in the area. 

We have been looking all day. The seas are flat calm. It’s such a beautiful day. 

After we left the whales we went to find mobulas. We found some, not as big a mating group as the other day. But the water vis was much better. The animals were moving pretty quickly so we didn’t stay in long. 

After the mobulas we went North and very far out to see if we could find any signs of the Os. 

Nothing. We are now headed back closer to land to see what we might find.

We motored around, but it was a fruitless search. We did see a marlin skimming with its tail out of the water along the surface. That’s always fun. The girls tried to get in but the marlin was shy and kept its distance. 

We got a radio call from one of our captain’s buddies telling us to get our ass to the South side…they found O’s!!!

We hauled ass over there and there they were.

A pod of four to five orcas. Our boat was on fire.

There was quite a few boats around so we just sort of watched what was going on. We followed along to see the behavior of the orcas. They were swimming in a direction that was taking them out to sea. 

But they changed directions and were now swimming towards our boat. Our group jumped in and got a quick view of the animals as they swam by. 

I stayed on the boat, I was taking topside images of the animals.

Our group was on fire! I was so happy they all got to see them. One of our girls cried her brains out.

I put my topside camera away and geared up with everyone else. I was not sure if we would get another chance, but was ready just in case.

We watched the orcas for a while and what the animals were doing.

I didn’t think we would get another chance, I figured the orcas were done with the boats.

The orcas were going South and we followed along. They were 60 to 70 yards away from us. They suddenly turned in our direction, so we all slid in and slowly swam forward. 

I didn’t think we would see them since they were so far away. I figured they were going to drop down and disappear. Instead something amazing happened. 

We were swimming in the direction we thought the orcas were in and sure enough they were there. Just hovering in one spot. One of the orcas was rolling upside down. They had stopped swimming and were just hanging out. 

The orcas then swam up to us slowly and gave us all the best encounter of our lives. They swam by us so close and so slow. It was EPIC! 

This was the stuff dreams are made of.

After they passed us, the orcas allowed us one more jump. Again, the orcas swam right up to us. This time the orcas were so close, I could of easily touched one. But I didn’t.

The energy on the boat was electric. Everyone was extremely happy. 

We tried one more jump and the orcas avoided us, so we said goodbye to the orcas and called it a day. 

We ended the adventure on a mega-high.

It was an amazing week with a lot of epic animals and wonderful people.  All of us were filled with gratitude for the week we had just experienced.