Grey Whale Trip Report 2024

Magdalena Bay, Mexico
February 12 - 17, 2024

 February 13, 2024 - Day One. First day of the trip. We met up with Gabino (my boat captain), at 7AM with our group. Three boats for our 12 guests and went out to find grey whales.

We put 4 guests per boat. Allowing more room for everyone to interact with the whales.

We motored straight out to the whales. As soon as we arrived I noticed something was off. Normally I see blows everywhere, today I saw very few.

I was worried.

The whales were not here in the numbers that I am used to seeing. They have not arrived yet.

Gabino mentioned that for the past two days they had not found whales, and that we were lucky we found this many whales. That was scary.

There was a lot of whales around, maybe 50 plus whales. But normally there is 100 to 150 plus whales in the area. 

We still had an amazing time with the friendly whales that were around… with a lot of whale interactions.

It was great, and our guests had a great time.

Water visibility was complete crap, so none of us managed to capture any underwater images. It was just too murky.

I was very happy the whale action was good, we had whales come in to have their heads scratched. That is what you hope for, for your friends that join you on these trips.

The highlight for everyone was getting to witness some mating whale action.

A couple of whales were rolling and dancing in a courtship display. Thrashing on the surface, some whale penny was seen. It was wild.

Sadly we did not have the drone with us, so we were not able to follow along with the action.

At the end of the day we visited the dunes to try our luck at finding coyotes. Sadly we did not see any coyotes, but everyone enjoyed visiting the dunes, except Amanda.

While in route to the dunes, she dropped her phone in the water.

We tried to help her find it, but sadly we did not.

However, while we were having dinner later that evening, Amanda’s boat captain, picked up a mask and snorkel and returned to the spot and found her phone.

The crazy thing is, the phone was still working!

Ove two hours in sea water and her Iphone was still going strong.

Hoping day two is a good day.

February 14, 2024 - Day two. We went to Bahia Almeja today. It was really good. Different from last seasons trip to Almejas, but still really good.

Well, we found out where all the whales are… it seems that a lot of them are here in this Bay. Man, there was a lot of whales here today.

Blows everywhere.

Today was all about witnessing behavior.

This place is famous for spy hopping whales. The waters in this bay are very shallow, so when the tides change, the whales here use the fast flowing waters to help them lift their heads out of the water.

Not really sure why they do this, I guess its just fun for them. It looks amazing.

It took a while though. We arrived there during high tide and it was flat, calm and the whales were mostly sleeping.

But when low tide rolled in their behavior changed and it went off!

It is a challenge to photograph because you never know where they are going to pop out. It feels like that Whack a Mole game, trying to see where it will pop up next.

It was a great day, and fun for the guests. It was long, as this Bay is very far away, but worth it.

Overall a good day with the whales. Hoping for some major playtime with the whales tomorrow… we will see.

February 15, 2024 - Day three. A freaking awesome day! 

The day started out blah. We arrived at the grey whale grounds, with over cast skies, but thankfully no wind and flat calm conditions. 

The action was slow, and there was a lot of boats out. We stayed for a little while, but we were not vibing it, so we decided today would be a good day to go out to the open ocean and scout for anything to swim with. 

We went straight to an area where we often find sea lions in a kelp forest. The spot is good when the swells are down. but today the swells were up and it was still over cast and cold so we opted to stay on the boat. And snap images of birds on the rocks.

We went out to search for wildlife and found a couple of humpbacks. A mom and calf. They avoided the boat so we kept going. 

We did not find anything out in the ocean to swim with, so we returned to the Bay. Most of the boats had already gone, and the sun was out! So that improved things even more.

The ocean was still super flat and the waters were calm… the visibility was incredible!

This would of been an epic day to swim with the grey whales. If it was allowed.

We did get some great opportunities for underwater images, the water clarity was so good.

We found a few players and had some decent interactions, then something epic happened. The whales started taking naps. We got to sit there and watch the whales sleep, which was insane. 

After their naps a few of them came up to the boats to scratch themselves on our boat. This went on for a couple of hours. 

At one point we motored up to five sleeping whales. It was so good. Angiolo sent up his drone and got some really good clips of whales in super clear water. 

Today was magic and the reason we keep returning to places like this. These are the moments I live for. 

It was a great great day. We also had a beautiful influencer girl out there that entertained our guests. She was nice to look at and distracted the guests and we all had a laugh. 

At 5PM I took, Angiolo, K, Greg and Magali out to photograph some sunset ospreys at a spot that Angiolo scouted on one of his afternoon runs. He took us down some very questionable dirt roads that almost had us trapped for the night. 

We got the van stuck a couple of times. Admittedly the van we rented was not designed for off-roading of any kind. So a sandy dirt road was definitely not what our bad boy was designed for.

There was a couple of guys there in their small car that made it up a dirt hill, that I guess were watching us trying to unstuck our van. They drove down the hill, got out to help us, or to ask what we were doing there. They really were more interested in what we were doing there vs helping us.

I was a bit leery of them. But they meant well. They stayed and watched for a bit, saw that we got the van out of the sandiest part of the road, then drove off.

It was getting late, so we decided not to push our luck any further. We turned the van around and headed back to paved roads.

We did manage a couple of sunset pics that were fun.

Over all a good day out on the water. 

One more day.

February 16, 2024 - Day Four - Final day at sea and damn what a day it turned out to be. The day started out very foggy, so I was not sure what kind of day it was going to be.

I knew it was going to be sunny, I was just not sure about the ocean conditions. There was no wind in the morning so it was super nice. We went to the mangroves to look for coyotes, but had no luck. It was also very foggy so we only stopped at one spot and didn’t look much after that.

We left the mangroves and went straight to the pelican spot to feed them scraps. That turned out amazing and we had some epic encounters with the pelicans. There is a lot of them right now and a lot of players. It was so good. I think I managed a few shots from that session that might turn out ok. 

When we left them our captain saved a few scraps and ran the boat with the pelicans following us along. That was wicked fun as the flew next to us. A lot of magic happening today. 

We finished the day with the grey whales. and it was another magical, magical day. Flat calm seas, the grey whales were feeling playful and the visibility was amazing.

It was another dream day, and it went on for hours. As a trip leader who organzies expeditions, this is what you want and hope for your guests. You want Magic to happen, and for everyone to experience it.

Everyone had epic moments with these whales and we all managed to capture a lot of images sharing how amazing this trip was, and how amazing these animals are.  

Today was such a beautiful way to finish up this trip… until next year!

YOUTUBE VLOG COMING SOON!