Eli Martinez

January 26, 2022

The 2022 Travel Season is About to Begin!

Eli Martinez

January 26, 2022

January 26, 2022 - The month is freaking gone! Damn, where does the time go?

So this week, I got fired up to write, I wrote a blog earlier this week, but decided to write another one. I do love writing.

I also was going to cut a new video blog, for the second part of our 2021 anaconda diving trip. Check out the first one if you have not seen it.

However, I was inspired to share a video from last season’s Baja shark trip. So I will be cutting together a short vlog from our 2021 mako and blue shark trip instead - which will be out on Friday or Saturday (hopefully Friday). - NOTE; I apologize, I was not able to cut a video these past two days… got tied up prepping to leave to Mexico. But planning to get some great stuff this season for you guys.

Our first trip for the 2022 season is for makos and blue sharks off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Historically, I have run this trip as a three-day expedition; however, I am running this years trip as a five-day. I am pleased about this because it gives us more time to see if we can encounter more wildlife, and right now, Cabo is on fire; whales, orcas, mobulas, and lots of sharks.

It is just alive and going off, and I am very excited about seeing what we might find out there.

Last year we had a really good trip, with surprise visitors on our final day out there.

SPERM WHALES!

We were chumming for sharks when we saw a lot of blows in the distance. Once we figured out what they were, we ditched the chum and took off after them. We ended up spending the rest of our day swimming with a family of sperm whales.

An extremely close encounter with a massive sperm whale. Image by Roberta Manchino

Unfortunately, the visibility was not the best, the water was green and murky. The encounters were a bit intimidating because you could not see the whales until they were less than 20 feet away from you.

Even though the vis sucked, it was epic… we had sperm whales! At the end of the day we were all exhausted, our nerves were shot, but so very happy.

Anyway, I am looking forward to the trip, and the unknown, and the magic, and the fun with our guests… and of course the sharks. Plus, Cabo is always a fun town to hang out in after a day in and on the water.

After our mako trip, we leave Cabo and head North to San Carlos to Magdalena Bay for the annual grey whale migration. Mag Bay is one of my favorite places in the world to visit. The wildlife here is all-time great.

San Carlos is a sleepy little fishing town, with really nothing going on most of the year. Tourists flock here during grey whale season, and that was it. When the whales left, the locals would revert to fishing, and the town would go quiet again.

Of course, when tourists started visiting Mag Bay for the marlin migration, in the wintertime, the town exploded with tourism again. But there is twice as many people there for marlin season, then the grey whale season. The amount of people wanting to swim with the marlin is something that still surprises the locals.

Anyway, the area was initially made famous for its friendly grey whales. The greys migrate here to breed, socialize, and pup, then they head off to where ever it is that they go for the rest of the year.

The whales here are so much fun, they will swim up to the boats, ask for face rubs, and they will do it over and over again. It is such a fantastic feeling having a wild animal like this come up to you and want you to give them a rub.

The experience is truly magical; there is nothing like it in the world. This expedition is possibly one of the most underrated trips that we offer. Because people just do not understand how EPIC an encounter like this truly is.

Anyway, I will be posting a lot while I am in Cabo, and it will slow down when I am in San Carlos because the wifi sucks. But that is ok and part of the experience. Sometimes it is nice to unplug for a bit and just get lost in nature. Mag Bay is one hell of a great place to do that too.

Oh yeah, while I am there, I will set up my camera traps again. A couple of years ago, I brought a camera trap out there to try and find a good spot for coyotes. We found a great site, not only for coyotes but also for bobcats. So I will set the cameras up again and see if the cat action is still good.

I am addicted to those amazing looking wild cats.

If it is, then I will bring a more sophisticated camera trap set up in the wintertime when I return to try and capture high res stills of these Baja wild cats. (more on that project later)

Bobcat scent marking in front of our camera trap. We managed to record three different cats at this spot.

Well, that is my update for today, I need to get back to packing for the trip and I think I have carried on for a while.

Get ready for more than s few posts over the coming weeks, our season is about to begin, and we get to go back out to do what we love… all day, every day!

Thank you for reading.

Eli Martinez

December 12, 2021

Marlin Mayhem!

Eli Martinez

December 12, 2021

November 11, 2021 - We finally got a break in the weather. Today we had flat calm seas with beautiful skies. Unfortunately, we got our asses kicked around by the angry seas for the first three days. This made the long days on the water even longer trying to find the hungry marlin hunting bait balls. The choppy seas and the cloudy skies made it difficult to pinpoint where the marlin were. Of course, the first few days were not an entire bust, we did find a blue whale while we were out there, along with humpback whales, so despite the bumpy rides, the days were still good for wildlife. Just not great.

Today though, we found them. It was a really good day, and our guests all had a blast experiencing bait balls. We didn’t have long bait ball encounters, but we did get a good taste of some bait ball action. Overall it was a fantastic time, and our guests had fun. They even helped out a turtle in distress. It got trapped in some fishing line, and our friends, Brad and his girl Alyssa helped out the turtle and managed to untangle the poor baby. What was so great was the turtle allowed them to help - it did not struggle or move as they were removing the ropes—wicked cool. Tomorrow the weather will be even better than today, and I am excited about what the day has in store for us.

This was one of the reports I wrote from two weeks spent at sea on our marlin baitball expedition this past November. Thankfully, the weather was kind to us for the rest of the trip, but it was brutal on the body those first three days. But I always say, if you want epic moments out on the ocean, you have to put in the time, take the hits when the ocean is angry, and when she shines on you, she will really shine… and she did. We were patient, and it paid off. We had great moments on this trip, with many animals and some beautiful days at sea.

The marlin were running hard, and they were everywhere. This was also a good year for schooling mobula rays, sea turtles, and whales. This season, the whales were out in full force, humpbacks, blue whales, and hunting brides whales.

We had such a good time this year, there was just so much going on. When you visit places like this, you are always hoping for encounters that our guests will get excited about. I am happy to report that yes they were happy and more. I spent two weeks here, and it just did not feel like it was enough time. I really wanted more. Maybe next year I will stay longer?

Here are some images from the trip. I do hope you enjoy…

On one weather day we swam with the sealions in the Kelp Beds.

5am starts allowed us to visit Bird Island to get some images of the rising sun when the birds were starting their day.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Eli Martinez

November 17, 2017

Pelagic Expedition Trip Report

Eli Martinez

November 17, 2017

It is always a nerve racking thing organizing pelagic expeditions, because you have no idea what to expect. You plan it during a time of year when you know the animals normally run through the area, but ultimately, it is left up to nature and the ocean what you will see out there. For this trip, we were after marlin feeding on baitballs. We were also hoping to see other open oceans animals like; whales, mola molas, turtles, sharks and the big O! There is a resident pod of orcas that frequently visits the area and we were hoping for a shot at seeing them as well.

During the month of November the pelagic activity is extremely good around Puerto San Carlos off Baja, Mexico. And after a few years of watching and waiting, I pulled the trigger in February of this year and organized our first trip out to the area to find those fish…at least I hoped we would.

A week before we arrived, there were reports of marlin baitball activity. That’s exactly what you hope to hear, marlin was our main goal of this trip. But that was a week before our trip. Anything can happen in a week. I was a nervous wreck. Which is typical of me on any trip I run.

On the first day of the expedition, expectations were high. We headed out to the area where they had been seeing the baitballs…and nothing! There was no bird activity, which is what helps us find the baitballs. No birds, meant, no sardines and sadly no marlin. We searched the area for a couple of hours. We found a small school of young mahi mahi that we jumped in with for a few minutes. But other than that we had zero signs of life, so we opted for plan B. Plan B was to cut the motors, drop some chum and hang baits and wait for sharks to show up. After 3 hours, we decided to call it a day. No sharks either. Day one was a bust. I was worried but not gutted, We still had 4 more days to find them. Which is why you plan these types of expeditions over several days, to give you the best opportunities to succeed.

We finished the day with a visit to the shark fishing camp. It is never fun, but it is always good to see what is happening out there. After seeing all the sharks they brought in, it was not hard to wonder why our chum slick was left unanswered.

When we got back, we heard reports that the marlin had moved on to another area, which was about 45 miles away from where they originally were. The following morning, we woke to clear and sunny skies. The weather was favoring us, and so we buckled in for a long ride out to the area where they had been spotting them.

As we were heading out, we spotted some porpoising dolphins in the bay. The dolphins were feeding on sardines and they were joined by tens of thousands of pelican, sea gulls and cormorants. This was easily one of the coolest natural predation events I have ever witnessed. The pelicans were dive bombing the ocean, Gulls were trying to steal away the sardines, the cormorants were diving down to prey on the sardines. We were surrounded by birds. It was an insane spectacle.

We left the birds and continued to motor out. After a couple hours we found the spot. There was several sport fishing boats in the area, some with marlin on their lines. But still no birds? The marlin were here, but we had no visible signs of birds trying to feed on the sardines that the marlin round up. I was worried that we were in for a second day of skunking.

We motored around for a little while with no luck. Finally we ran into one of our captain Gabino’s local fishing buddy. He asked if they had seen any baitballs. They said, “oh yea, there are thousands of them over there.” Pointing to an area about a half mile away. We motored over to the area, scanning the skies but still no birds. However as we looked at the ocean’s surface it was boiling over with activity. There were marlin jumping, chasing sardines all over the place. We found an oasis! Strangely there was no birds out there taking advantage of these baitballs, so we had to find them the old fashion way, which is normally really hard to do. Thankfully, because there were so many baitballs everywhere, that made it easy to do.

We jumped in, photographed and filmed baitball after batiball. It was insane. The marlin were on fire and so were we. We even had some bottlenose dolphin join in for a couple of passes. It was such a great day and everything we had hoped for. During the ride home, I sat back with a huge relief washing through me. I was grateful the fishermen were out there, it would of been very hard for us to find them without there help. It was so weird that there were no birds. Frigate birds are how we normally find these types of feeding activities. Yet, they were not around?

Day three. We headed out for more marlin. This time the frigate birds were around, making it much easier to find the baitballs. Again, we spent an amazing day with the marlin.

Towards the end we were all pretty tired, to the point where we skipped turns in the water. We were about to call it a day, when a brydes whale broke the surface nearby to catch a breath of air. We motored over to where we saw it drop. We cut the motors and scanned the area. It broke the surface about fifty yards away from our boat and was swimming in our direction. We geared up as quickly as we could and silently slid in the water for a shot at seeing the whale. It was diving down and I swam toward it snapping away. There is no greater feeling in the world than when you get to share the water with one of these animals. They are just massive and so breathtakingly beautiful.

Sadly the weather changed and for our last two days, we were not able to get out to the area where the marlins were, so we stayed local to see what we could find. We chummed again, but no sharks showed up. We ended up spending some time in the bay, checking out the bird action. There are so many birds here, it is unreal. We also set up a photo session with the pelicans which was a lot of fun.

The trip ended for us and I am so damn happy to report that everyone left happy. The marlin performed like rock stars and if the weather hadn’t turned on us, we would of been able to spend all week with them. We only spent two days with them, but it was enough time for everyone to leave the trip satisfied with the week they spent here in San Carlos. For me the trip was amazing. The ocean life, the birds, the people. It is everything I want from an adventure. I am already excited about next season and the unknown surprises it will bring us. Hopefully, it will be with more marlin, more whales, more birds, lots of sharks and that pod of orcas we so dreamily hope to encounter?

Until then...

The 2022 Travel Season is About to Begin!

Marlin Mayhem!

Pelagic Expedition Trip Report

Trip Photo Gallery

Birding Images from the Trip