Exploring a world without fences…
one story at a time.
Image by Markus Davids.
This is our second trip of the 2022 wildlife photography season. We visited Magdalena Bay Mexico for grey whales. This is an extremely special place. The wildlife here is some of the best in the world. During the early winter season we visit Mag Bay to swim with striped marlin and humpback whales. in the month of February we are here to play with friendly grey whales. Here is the photo report from this years trip… I hope you enjoy!
We just posted a new trip report for our first trip of the 2022 wildlife travel season. Mako and blue sharks off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Well I should stop calling it a mako trip, since the makos did not show up this year. We did have some solid blue shark action which was really great. Anyway, here is the link to the trip report, hope you enjoy.
I am playing catch up with trip reports from previous trips. This is from our beluga whale expedition that we ran back in 2018. I know I am late posting it, but it had been on my mind and I always wanted to get it up. The adventure and the experience was so good it was a must share.
Sadly due to Covid we have not been back to Canada since this trip, but thankfully we will finally return to visit this magical place.
Super excited about sharing this very late trip report with you all. We hope you enjoy…
This blog is from my travel journal. The signal in Puerto San Carlos where we visit the grey whales is horrible so I was not able to do much while I was there. But I am back in Texas, playing catch up on blogs and images and emails. I wanted to share moments and memories from our second trip of the season…
February 7, 2022 - Day one of our grey whale expedition. The adventure begins. We are in Puerto San Carlos, with the next four days to be spent seeking out grey whales off Magdalena Bay.
We headed out in two boats; Mari took one boat with the girls and our buddy Jay, I took another boat out with the guys. We split the boats up into two groups to keep our numbers small. I prefer to have only four people in the boats with us so that there is plenty of room to lean over and play with the whales when they approach.
Eva and Lori are new to the wildlife world, but are now very addicted. Welcome to our Normal Ladies.
We left the dock super early and headed out in search of adventure. Damn, I love saying that. San Carlos during this time of year is chilly. It is the winter season, and the mornings are cold. So we were all bundled up as we motored across the Bay. We snapped images of the rising sun as we headed out.
It took us an hour to get to the area where the grey whales hang out. Once we arrived, we enjoyed the sight and sounds of whale blows scattered all around. The sound of a whale coming up for a breath of air is genuinely one of the most incredible sounds you will ever hear in nature. Hearing several blows all around you - there are no words for how epic that is, love that sound!
We hung out with the whales for the rest of the day, patiently waiting for a flirty female to approach our boat. After about thirty minutes, we had whales swim up and begin rolling and rubbing up against our boat. The excitement you see with everyone on the boat, including me, is the best.
I love how fired up everyone gets when a whale approaches. The boys dropped their cameras in, snapping away as the whales came in for a rub. On Mari’s boat, the girls squealed with excitement. Yes, there were a lot of girls screaming on her boat, probably on mine too, BUT, I chose to ignore those sounds to protect the innocent. Lol
We played with the whales for a long time. The whales were swimming from boat to boat, seeking out attention. For some reason, they enjoyed visiting Mari’s boat compared to ours. My guess is the girls were more handsy with the whales than we were. There was more focus on snapping underwater images of them than playing with them on our boat. So I guess the whales got bored and went back to them for more love.
In the afternoon, our Captain spotted many birds near the surface, about two miles away. Signs that there might be a baitball, so he asked us if we wanted to check it out, and off we went. We picked up Jay from Mari’s boat and headed out to the open ocean.
Diving pelicans, picking off sardines from the baitball.
We got closer and ended up motoring into a superpod of common dolphins—tens of thousands of dolphins were in the area hunting sardines. We tried a few jumps with them, but they kept their distance and dropped down deep, too deep for us at least. We could see them, but they were not close enough to try and snap images of them.
So we just enjoyed the topside show they gave us. It was a lot of fun trying to photograph them. Snapping jumping images of dolphins is always a challenge, you get a card full of crappy images. But every once in a while you get lucky and snap a gem.
For scenes like this, video always tells a better story of what we are experiencing. Plus with video, you can capture the sounds that thousands of dolphins make is fire! There are so many dolphins, you can actually hear their underwater whistles while standing on the boat.
After we left the dolphins, we arrived at the baitball, and jumped in to see what what was left of it. It was still a nice-sized baitball of sardines, with about 6 to 7 sea lions hunting them. It was a static ball, and the sea lions were extremely friendly with us and kept coming up to our cameras. The water was green, the visibility was not great and it was freezing cold - but damn was it fun! We stayed there for about 45 minutes and then returned to the Bay to finish up our day with the whales.
Overall it was a fantastic first day in and on the water. We are already looking forward to what tomorrow brings.
Thank you guys for reading.
The glamorous life on the road. We found a place to sleep for a couple of hours at the airport, during our four hour layover.
Travel day, I am home after 24 hours of travel. We took the long way home. We left San Carlos at 6:30AM and drove the 5 1/2 hours to San Jose del Cabo airport to drop off our friends who joined us. After that we sat in the airport and waited for our red-eye flight back to Texas. We landed in Mexico City at 1am, our next flight was at 5am. We didn’t get home until 8AM the next morning.
Crappy flight schedule.
So worth it though… This has been one hell of a Baja adventure. Sadly I broke my word to myself and did not journal every night after getting back to the hotel room. The days out on the water off Mag Bay are long. Really long, and you are just beat when you get back from the sea.
The internet signal is also bad out in Mag Bay, so sharing blogs and vlogs was not an option. But the good part is I have a long-ish break in between these trips, and my next ones, so I will be sharing clips and stories from this adventure over the next few weeks.
and there will be some good ones…
Magdalena Bay did not disappoint. We had a fantastic adventure with great people - Baja and the wildlife here is first-class. This was one of the best experiences we have ever had at Mag Bay and I can’t wait to share.
The grey whales were friendlier than ever and gave us all so many unique opportunities to capture images and videos of them. We even had some great encounters with a three-week-old baby.
The baby was a bit shy, but its mom encouraged it to come in close, teaching it to swim and play around the boats. What is remarkable is this behavior only happens when the whales are in these Bays.
When the whales are out in the open ocean, they return to being shy and untrusting and do not like to be close to the boats. But in the Bay, some whales truly love interacting with people… they are such amazing animals.
And when you think about it, humans once visited these Bays to hunt the whales for their oil. As a result, we nearly brought these beautiful animals to the brink of extinction due to human greed. Sadly the Makah tribe off Washington is still trying to kill grey whales as part of their ancestral rights. Hoping that tradition comes to an end.
Anyway, I will share more blogs with you all this week, and trips, and newsletters and updates on next season's trip.
Until then, my friends, stay tuned and thank you for reading.
Today was the day we had been waiting for.
Moral had been low due to very slow shark action, and after three days of disappointments out at sea, we were rewarded for our patience.
We got a blue shark today!
We did not get skunked entirely this week… On day one, we did have a silky shark around our boat, and we got some water time with it, but it was shy, and it did not hang around for a long time. Plus, our group was hoping for a mako or blue shark, not a silky.
Silkies are an easier shark to find than its pelagic cousins, so it is not as coveted and glamorous a species. However, it is still a cool shark and a lot of fun to encounter.
AND this is a mako and blue shark trip, so it was cool to see a silky, but not as cool as seeing a mako or blue. lol
Today we had been chumming for about three hours when our buddy Chris asked if he could get in the water to cool off. Of course, we said yes, and not 10 minutes into his cool-off snorkel, he called out that there was a shark under the boat. It was a five-plus foot male blue shark.
Excitedly we all geared up and jumped in the water. With pelagic species, you have to get in quickly; you just never know how long the shark is going to stick around for. Thankfully the shark stayed with us for the next hour and a half straight, and it was not shy at all.
Tried to do a few split shots. After looking at the few images I shot, this one was my favorite from the day. I just wished I had tried to shoot more.
Our blue shark was extremely curious and we had to guide it away a few times. Here our buddy Chris gently pushed away the nosey shark.
The shark kissed all our dome ports. It repeatedly chased our hang baits and swam around all of us the entire time.
This is what I wanted for our group. A confident shark that gave us plenty of opportunities to spend time with it and capture nice images of the shark that they were all going to be happy with. It was an amazing player, and our guests all had one hell of a good time.
A day like today is the stuff that dreams are made of and why I love wildlife adventures. I was so damn happy, and I am looking forward to more shark action tomorrow, which is our final day in the water.
We still need to find a mako shark. I want our guests to see one, and tomorrow looks like the perfect day to do it too.
I have no doubt we will… I can feel it!
Mathias chumming with fresh bait… Image by Chris Kemper
Well, another tough day out on the ocean. This morning we arrived at our boat, and it was a bit chilly with some wind in the marina. Signs that it was going to be rough out on the ocean. We decided to try a different spot to see if we would get better results. The site we visited was good a week ago but went cold for us the first two days.
So we tried a seamount that was a few miles closer to land. Unfortunately, the water here was green and not the blue we had had the previous two days. But perhaps the green water would help us find those elusive sharks. Green also means the water here was colder, which might help us with the blue sharks. They tend to like the cooler waters.
As we chummed for a few hours, the winds kept building, and with it came the white caps. The swells were building, and it was getting choppy. Finally, about four-plus hours into chumming, we saw our first shark. Well, Brad thought he saw a blue shark earlier, but no one else did, so we marked it off as a phantom shark.
The shark that arrived we all saw it. It cruised in on a wave as it headed towards our hang baits. It was not a mako or a blue. It was a smooth hammerhead! Excitedly we all started gearing up. I tried to rush everyone because the one thing I know about these oceanic hammerheads is that they do not stick around very long.
Sadly I was right. The shark left as fast as it arrived. A few of us got in the water, but the shark was gone. No one saw it in the water. Damn it.
The swells were building dangerously high, so we made a safety call. We pulled all our bait, dumped the chum, and called it a day. We slowly motored back to port in a very messy ocean.
The waves were high and made for an exciting ride back home.
As we motored back to port, we encountered another smooth hammerhead along the way. It was swimming on the surface; we watched it for a quick minute, called it a few dirty names for not showing up to our chum slick, then left it alone.
Sadly today was not our day, moral is low, but thankfully we still have two more days, and tomorrow looks fantastic.
In fact, I genuinely believe tomorrow will be an excellent wildlife day at sea.
I can feel it!
Bull sealion. We stopped by the sealion colony off Cabo San Lucas, MX. on the way out to snap a few images.
Well, we got skunked, damn it!
It happens.
This is why we run these trips over several days because with pelagic sharks, you just never know if and when they will show up. Today they were a no-show. AND the day was perfection. The weather was beautiful, and the water visibility was an incredible deep blue. The vis looked insane. Of course, I didn’t get in to confirm it, but from the surface, it was WOW.
All we needed was some sharks… and NADA! Nothing, no sharks showed up.
Our group was disappointed with the makos no-show today, but that is part of the dance. You can not have good days without bad ones. It is all about time in the water and the magic is out there waiting for us.
But that is what nature sometimes does. She decides that you need a kick in the teeth, and to remind you that what we are doing is not easy. If we want to find makos to dive with, we are going to have to put in the time.
We still have three days left, thankfully, so there is time to get back out there and find some sharks to dive with.
At the end of the day, on the way back into the marina, we stopped to watch some common dolphins jumping around and a couple of humpback whales in the middle of all that craziness. I snapped a fluke shot that looked like it might be worth sharing, and after that, we motored in and called it a day.
We are just going to have to wait until tomorrow to find our magic… and I do not doubt that Day Three will be our day… I can feel it!
Until then my friends, thanks for reading.
Day 1 - The weather was amazing! Today was a beautiful day at sea. The sun was out, and the water was nice and calm. It was so good, everything you hope for when you set out on an open ocean adventure. There was some wind, but we needed that to help us chum.
On the way out, we encountered several humpback whales. The whales were in the green water near the island, and we wanted sharks so we pressed on.
We motored out for about ten miles, hit our marks, and killed the engine to start chumming. Our group was eager to find us some makos. Makos are always the stars of these pelagic shark dives. Blue sharks are amazing, but makos are just rock stars.
After about 3 hours of chumming, we had our first shark show up. It was a nice-sized silky shark, which was a surprise because they are not supposed to be here. It is the wrong time of year for silkies.
They obviously did not get the memo.
Our group quickly geared up to jump in. I decided to stay on board and watch from the boat. Everyone else jumped in with our trusty guide and safety diver, Fer. I wanted them to get some solid water time with this shark. Just in case, it decided not to stay.
After a good 30 minutes, the shark disappeared. Shortly after that, a second silky appeared. This one was a bit shy and would not come in close.
It didn’t stay long.
silky shark
The shark returned after a while, and I jumped in to get a look at it. Again, it remained shy and did not come in close. I snapped a few images, but nothing I got excited about. I did not bother opening up my camera housing to look at the images.
We chummed for another hour but no other sharks came in. After that we called it a day and headed in. It was a good day and a fun way to kick off the trip. Of course as I sit here journaling about the day, I am already excited about Day Two… day two is going to be even better, and we will find our makos.
I can feel it!
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.
short fin mako shark
blue shark
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.
