Today was day one of Week Two of our Baja adventure. Yesterday I picked up the group in our rental van. Whenever I rent a vehicle for our groups, I find it important to give it a name. Last week we dubbed our van, The Grey Whale. This week our crew added some deeper thoughts into what we were going to name our ride. After a few back and forths, we dubbed our big beautiful white beast Alice.

We chose Alice as our van's name because somewhere in the 1960s, there was an albino orca out in the wild; the researchers had dubbed her Alice. Well, since orcas are one of the animals we are all hoping to encounter this week, it was a fitting name.

We began our morning in perfect conditions. It was flat calm, with no wind, and our group was excited about getting things going. We left the marina and motored into the bay. After a few miles, we spotted some birds dropping down to feed on a bait ball at the ocean's surface. There was a bunch of common dolphins and sea lions hunting the bait ball. Flashes of them would explode out of the water.

We quickly geared up and jumped in to watch the carnage that was happening just below the surface. Sadly the water visibility was horrible. We could see the bait ball and the predators attacking it, but barely. It was murky. I snapped awful images of the excitement - it was just fun getting to dive on a bait ball. We jumped in and stayed with it as long as we could. It was great when it was just us. However, two other boats showed up, and the waters quickly got crowded, so we decided to say goodbye to these beautiful babies, let the other boats have some fun, and see what else we could find.

Not long after, we ran into a pair of massive finback whales. Finbacks are the second-largest whales on the planet. It truly is a privilege to be around them. We still had not heard reports of any orca activity in the area, so we decided to spend the rest of the day checking out these big badasses.

The pair of whales we encountered were not the only whales out here. There were at least ten finback whales scattered about, and it was awesome. There is something extra special about whales. No words can honestly describe them. We spent most of our time with them until we got a radio call from a friend, letting us know that orcas were spotted about five miles away from where we were. We said bye to the whales and hauled ass in search of the sea pandas. Sadly after a couple of hours of searching, we could not find them. We decided to call it a day and began a slow ride back home to the marina.

Of course, we had to stop and snap some images of a colony of sea lions sleeping, fighting, and barking on a tiny island of rocks. Sea dogs are always a lot of fun. We thought about getting in the water but decided just to go home - maybe tomorrow.

Overall, day one was great and a great way to kick off a new week of adventures. I can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us!