Baja Wildlife Expedition Trip Report 2025

Trip # 2
May 3 - 10, 2025

 May 4, 2025 –Day One
The week begins. Our new group arrived yesterday, and today we kicked off day one of the expedition.

It’s a beautiful morning—clear skies, no clouds, and just a light breeze. It might get bumpy later, but we're hoping conditions hold.

We’re headed south in search of pilot whales. They were seen yesterday, so we’re hoping to catch up to them.

We left the dock at 8:00 AM. Judging by the parking lot, there are a lot of boats out today. We’ll see what Baja has in store for us.

11:00 AM
Not much action so far. We did come across a small smooth hammerhead slowly finning at the surface. We followed it for a bit, hoping it would approach the boat, but it kept its distance. We moved on.

12:32 PM
We encountered a super pod of common dolphins—hundreds of them, but they were in a hurry. We enjoyed a short session following them from the boat. These dolphins are notoriously shy in the water, so we didn’t attempt to jump in. Beautiful to watch, though.

3:38 PM
We’re headed back in. It was a quiet day on the water, but still beautiful. We followed a fast-moving pod of bottlenose dolphins for a while.

They swam alongside the boat briefly before continuing on their way.

Just before heading in, we found a lone humpback whale—very shy and kept its distance, so we respected that and left it alone.

Today, we covered 119 nautical miles. We searched hard, covered a lot of ocean, and while encounters were limited, the conditions were peaceful.

That’s the thing about Baja… you never know what the day will bring.

May 5, 2025 – Day Two

We woke up to a cloudy, windy morning. Knowing the wind was only going to get worse, we decided to head out early—leaving port at 7:00 AM in hopes of getting ahead of it.

Unfortunately, by the time we reached the mobula ray area, the wind was already whipping.

Still, we spotted promising signs of life. A large group of birds—mainly pelicans with a few frigates mixed in—were feeding on a fast-moving baitball. As we watched, a pod of bottlenose dolphins arrived, made a quick pass, and just as quickly moved on.

Our first baitball of the season.

We continued to the mobula zone and found plenty of rays, but the water was green and murky, with growing whitecaps.

The swell was building fast, and conditions were far from ideal.

Instead of getting in the water, we opted to shoot topside photos. The mobulas were jumping like crazy, giving us some great opportunities from the boat without having to jump into the soup.

By late morning, I made the call to head in early. The conditions just weren’t worth forcing it today.

Tomorrow is another day.