Baja Wildlife Expedition Trip Report 2025

Trip # 5
June 8 - 15, 2025

 June 9, 2025 – Day One.
New group. New week of diving. We left the dock at 7:00 AM, full of hope—but the open ocean had other plans. High winds are sweeping across the channel, so we’re forced to play it safe and stay inside the bay today.

The bay itself is stunning—flat calm, protected by the island, and full of life.

Everything beyond, though, looks blown out. Still, we’re here, we’ve got cameras, a boat full of snacks, and we’re going to make the most of the day.

8:00 AM. We’re on the hunt for a playful group of mobulas. We found a large fever of Mobulas (I just learned that word today), and gave it a shot, but they were skittish—tight formation, fast moving, not quite ready to have divers visit them today.

9:26 AM. And then… things turned around. We found the right group.
The mobula action was really, really good—it was a great session. They stayed near the surface, moving slowly, allowing us to get in close. We managed to snap some nice photos, and the footage is going to be really fun.

At one point, I just stopped shooting altogether, and followed along, watching them glide effortlessly through the water—beautiful little ocean angels. I do not do that often enough anymore. I would promise myself that I am gonna put the camera down to enjoy the animals more, but I know that is not gonna happen. I love shooting too much.

Today I photographed the mobulas with a shutter speed of 1/400 instead of 1/320. I think it is a much better number to work with, I noticed some of my close up mobulas were a bit soft, from previous sessions in May. Decided to make that change and I am much happier with the results.

We pushed out farther to test the conditions, but the wind had other plans. Whitecaps were building fast. It became clear we wouldn’t get much more out of the open ocean today, so we turned around and headed back into the bay.

1:00 PM. We heard reports of dolphins in the area and went to check it out. Turned out to be a small pod of bottlenose. We watched them for a few minutes, but they weren’t in the mood to interact.

With the wind now pushing even into the bay and the surface getting choppy, we called it a day and headed in early.

Tomorrow’s is our day…and we’ll be ready.

June 10, 2025 – Day Two

6:00 AM
We’re heading out early, chasing opportunity before the wind shuts us down. A storm system is stirring up the sea, and forecasts say we’ll likely have to retreat early—so we’re making every minute count.

8:40 AM
Roughly 10 miles offshore, riding a rolling swell. The wind is slowly building, but conditions are still workable—and then, a gift…

Sperm whales.

We spotted distant blows and motored over quietly. I launched the drone to confirm the species and sure enough, it was a pod of five sperm whales, slowly cruising the surface. For a brief moment, they began to socialize—play fighting, nudging each other—it was absolutely incredible to capture on video.

I filmed them for a while, and just as the drone hit 35 minutes of flight time, I got the return-to-home warning. I rushed to bring it back. Cano and I tried to land it, but I reached too far and misjudged the approach—the drone clipped a canopy post and crashed onto the deck. Miraculously, nothing broke—not even the props. I’ll test it back at port to make sure it’s still functional. Either way, the footage is safe, and that alone makes the whole encounter worth it.

11:00 AM
To escape the rising south wind, we headed north and tucked in behind the island. The water flattened out again—calm enough to keep searching.

Soon, we found another pod of sperm whales, but this time they were scattered, clearly in hunting mode. A couple flukes lifted as they dove deep. Now the waiting game begins—sperm whales often dive for 45 minutes to an hour depending on depth.

We hung out and watched them for a short while. I was hoping they would group up and I could send the drone up (even though I was nervous about flying it after the crash), to film some socializing, but sadly they did not. So we left them to continue our search for orcas. 

2:00 PM
We cruised to a known orca hotspot in the north. A friend’s group was already in the water—swimming with an oceanic manta. I’ve never seen one here, so we were ready in seconds. Unfortunately, the manta dropped out of sight before we could join the action.

As we searched, a huge pod of bottlenose dolphins arrived—leaping over the waves, full of energy. We approached and went for a jump.

The first jump was okay. The second, even better. But the third… was so good!

When I jumped in, I followed a few dolphins swimming ahead. As I kicked along, I began noticing more down below—dozens of them, deep beneath me. I started following, and as I did, the number kept growing. The dolphins rose up to the surface to breath. More and more dolphins began to arrive, joining the pod. They started slowing down just enough for me to catch up. Suddenly, I was surrounded—a wall of bottlenose dolphins stretched out in front of me. I snapped photo after photo. The visibility wasn’t great, but I didn’t care—this was the most bottlenose dolphins I had ever been around.

Then, something wild happened. The dolphins began to descend together. I turned to look behind me—even more dolphins had gathered, and they too started dropping down. It felt like the entire pod—more than a hundred strong—had converged and was now descending as one unit. It was absolutely mind-blowing to witness.

The video was amazing. (will upload that later).

It was an epic encounter. I swam among them, snapping one bad photo after another—but honestly, I didn’t care. I was so happy.

Just being in that moment was everything. 

I followed them as long as I could before hopping back onboard.

We finished with one more jump—and that was also a good jump.

A perfect way to wrap the day.

Thank you, Baja.

Wildlife we have encountered this week:

• Mobula rays

• Sperm whales

• Bottlenose dolphins

• Olive Ridley sea turtles.

• Jumping striped marlin