May 29, 2021 - What an exhausting, amazing, and surprising trip this was for our guests and me. No words to express how grateful I am for having the privilege of bringing people out into nature and showing them the beauty of the natural world.

This trip was not perfect, but it was a great trip. The O’s sadly never arrived for us. They were always a bit too far, showing up in other areas that were many miles away. However, the ocean did provide an abundance of wildlife for us to enjoy, and if you were only here for the O’s, then you are missing the forest for the trees.

The Sea of Cortez is a magical place - we encountered three different species of whales, including the biggest of them all, the blue whale. Along with two species of dolphins, tens of thousands of Mobula rays, baitballs, sea lions - it was so much fun. The ocean just kept surprising us and bringing us gifts.

On our final two days in the water, we spent an hour with a friendly pair of juvenile humpback whales. One of them was breaching over and over again. It would breach, then flipper slap the surface, right next to our boat. We stayed with them for about an hour and left them to try and find the O’s. Reports came back that they kept playing for over three hours after we left. Insane.

Breaching right next to our boat, I did not have the right lens.

We also encountered a super pod of coastal bottlenose dolphins. We got to jump in and play with this pod as they swam around us, some of them coming in close to see what we were. It was a lot of fun. After we were done with our time in the water, we watched them breaching and jumping in our boat’s wake—many opportunities for stills and video. What was unique about these dolphins was their size and color. They are massive dolphins, and their skin is a charcoal grey, and when the sun touches them, they look black—such beautiful dolphins.

On our final day, we had flat calm seas and found a mating group of mobulas. Easily over ten thousand mobulas were in this mating ball, and it was a sight to see.

They kept popcorning all around - even when we were in the water, a fantastic way to end the trip.

THE FOLLOWING DAY…

I dropped off Mark, Parag, and Boud at the airport, said goodbye, and then dropped off our trusty steed Alice at the rental shop. Garin, Sara, and I went to Cabo to jump on an afternoon session with my buddy Jacob and Cabo Shark Tours to try and find some sharks.

The conditions were horrible, absolutely horrible. When we jumped in the water, we spent most of our time chasing the boat being pushed by the wind in giant swells. It was worth it; we ended up swimming with four silky sharks, including one that was heavy with pilot fish.

Finally, I asked Jacobo to untie the baitbox from the boat and let it float free. We no longer had the swells pushing us around and the ocean, despite the rising swells was nice and calm. It was nice!

After that, the silkies were a bit shy but still stayed around. We also had a small school of young mahi-mahi hanging around - behind them, a seawolf came in. A huge marlin swam by us. It was magic and a hell of a great way to end this epic two weeks here off Baja.

A huge thanks to our friends who joined us these past two weeks - and to my buddies who helped me out in Baja during our time at sea. Thank you for sharing this adventure with me - these amazing experiences are forever engrained in my soul. Until the next one!!!

What a day today was! It was an incredible day. Sadly we are still zero for orcas, but today was so much fun. Exhausting, but fun. We went out to look for sea pandas and the big schools of Mobula rays. Well, it turned out the orcas were over in Cabo today. Too far for us to get to, but despite not having those badasses here, we had incredible encounters with massive schools of Mobula rays. They were popcorning all over the place. I snapped some images but could not get that perfect shot. So I gave up for a bit and jumped in to enjoy the incredible underwater show.

After we finished up with the mobulas, we cruised by a small island with a pretty healthy sea lion colony. Most of the sea lions were not there as it is breeding season for them, and love is in the air, along with very aggressive male sea lions. We left the colony, but before we did, I experienced some wicked cool magic. Up high in the rocks was a lifer sea bird for me - A blue-footed boobie! It was perched high up on the cliffs. I excitedly snapped a proof of life shot of this very iconic bird. I thought I would need to visit the Galapagos for a shot at this famous beauty. It turns out they frequently visit Baja. I still have plans to visit the Galapagos, but happy to have seen this bird. I want better images of it, but glad to have gotten this shot.

We left the colony and went out to look for finback whales to photograph. We found them pretty quickly, but they were shy and stayed far away from our boat. So we watched them for a little while then moved on. Shortly after, we ran into a superpod of common dolphins hunting sardines. It was chaotic and so much fun to watch. We tried jumping in several times, but the visibility was total crap. So we watched a fantastic topside show.

We left the bait ball and started motoring back to port, all of us sunburnt and exhausted from a bit of ocean fun. On our way in, we encountered a big pod of those beautiful black bottlenose dolphins. They started using our boats wake to launch themselves out of the water, and we were treated to a fantastic aerial show. While we were watching them, one of our friends, Garin, said, “I just don’t understand how anyone could lock up these beautiful things in an aquarium.” I have to agree with him.

They all should be wild and free.

Overall it was an amazing day out at sea. Looking forward to the surprises tomorrow has in store for us—can’t wait.

Ok, super tired and headed to bed. Thank you for reading, guys.

The Final Two Days at Sea!

What a Fun, Fun Day at Sea.