destination people generally think about when planning a vacation to Mexico; indeed, most people have probably never even heard of it. It lies on the Pacific Ocean side of Baja California Sur, but visitors don’t go there to swim or scuba dive or lie on the beach. Flying into the desert near the lagoon in an airplane so tiny they can’t even stand up straight in it, they may start to question why they decided to go there at all. But they are there because they have heard about the laguna de ballenas amistosas (lagoon of friendly whales) and they want to see if the stories are really true.
Two years ago I was one of those people, although I wasn’t actually the person who was supposed to be there. My husband, Phil, was, since he had been part of a successful campaign a few years earlier to prevent Mitsubishi Corporation from building a salt plant at the lagoon, which serves as the nursing groundsof the California gray whale. He had been asked by others who had been a part of the campaign to go with them and see the whales for himself. After all the arrangements had been made, pressing business matters arose that kept Phil from taking the trip, and he asked if I would like to go in his stead.
I had gone whale watching before, crowded with strangers along the rail of a large tour boat off the coast of Monterey, fighting seasickness and straining for a glimpse of a whale a quarter of a mile in the distance. I had no desire to take a trip like that again. But I knew that this was not going to be that kind of whale watching. My husband had been told stories about camping out on the beach in Mexico, close enough to hear the whales breathe in the stillness of the night. That sounded like a once-in-a-lifetime whale-watching excursion, and I was grateful for the opportunity.
I packed my gear and flew to San Diego, the jumping-off point for the trip. The chartered bus ride with my fellow whale watchers from San Diego to a small private airport across the border in Tijuana was uneventful. When I saw the small planes we were about to board, I suddenly understood why I had to list my weight on the trip application and was instructed to bring no more than thirty pounds of luggage. It looked like only a dozen or so passengers would fit inside each plane. I found myself worrying about whether or not I had been entirely truthful when I listed my weight, and whether I might have packed a few more things than I really needed.
With a certain amount of trepidation, I climbed the steps to the plane’s entrance, hunched forward and squeezed throughthe narrow passage that served as an aisle, dropping into the first open seat I saw. The lavatory was separated from the cabin by only a flimsy curtain. After takeoff, the person sitting in the last seat in the plane began serving the in-flight meal by reaching into the cooler supplied by the tour operator and passing snacks and soft drinks forward until everyone, including the pilot and copilot, had something to eat. I was beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself into.
Fortunately, the plane touched down without incident on a dusty airstrip in the desert, where we were met by vans and driven several miles to the water’s edge. We grabbed our luggage and boarded pangas, small fishing boats about twenty-two feet in length, which delivered us about forty-five minutes later to the Rocky Point campground at Laguna San Ignacio. We unloaded the boats bucket-brigade style, found our assigned cabin tents and received a brief orientation about the camp.
After a quick lunch we headed down to the water and climbed back into the pangas for our first ride out to see the whales. In addition to the pangateers who piloted the boats, there was a naturalist aboard each boat to point out the birds—black-and-white surf scoters, with their striking orange bills; parasitic jaegers, conducting midair attacks to steal fish from the mouths of hapless gulls; and other denizens of the lagoon, such as sea turtles,
Two years ago I was one of those people, although I wasn’t actually the person who was supposed to be there. My husband, Phil, was, since he had been part of a successful campaign a few years earlier to prevent Mitsubishi Corporation from building a salt plant at the lagoon, which serves as the nursing groundsof the California gray whale. He had been asked by others who had been a part of the campaign to go with them and see the whales for himself. After all the arrangements had been made, pressing business matters arose that kept Phil from taking the trip, and he asked if I would like to go in his stead.
I had gone whale watching before, crowded with strangers along the rail of a large tour boat off the coast of Monterey, fighting seasickness and straining for a glimpse of a whale a quarter of a mile in the distance. I had no desire to take a trip like that again. But I knew that this was not going to be that kind of whale watching. My husband had been told stories about camping out on the beach in Mexico, close enough to hear the whales breathe in the stillness of the night. That sounded like a once-in-a-lifetime whale-watching excursion, and I was grateful for the opportunity.
I packed my gear and flew to San Diego, the jumping-off point for the trip. The chartered bus ride with my fellow whale watchers from San Diego to a small private airport across the border in Tijuana was uneventful. When I saw the small planes we were about to board, I suddenly understood why I had to list my weight on the trip application and was instructed to bring no more than thirty pounds of luggage. It looked like only a dozen or so passengers would fit inside each plane. I found myself worrying about whether or not I had been entirely truthful when I listed my weight, and whether I might have packed a few more things than I really needed.
With a certain amount of trepidation, I climbed the steps to the plane’s entrance, hunched forward and squeezed throughthe narrow passage that served as an aisle, dropping into the first open seat I saw. The lavatory was separated from the cabin by only a flimsy curtain. After takeoff, the person sitting in the last seat in the plane began serving the in-flight meal by reaching into the cooler supplied by the tour operator and passing snacks and soft drinks forward until everyone, including the pilot and copilot, had something to eat. I was beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself into.
Fortunately, the plane touched down without incident on a dusty airstrip in the desert, where we were met by vans and driven several miles to the water’s edge. We grabbed our luggage and boarded pangas, small fishing boats about twenty-two feet in length, which delivered us about forty-five minutes later to the Rocky Point campground at Laguna San Ignacio. We unloaded the boats bucket-brigade style, found our assigned cabin tents and received a brief orientation about the camp.
After a quick lunch we headed down to the water and climbed back into the pangas for our first ride out to see the whales. In addition to the pangateers who piloted the boats, there was a naturalist aboard each boat to point out the birds—black-and-white surf scoters, with their striking orange bills; parasitic jaegers, conducting midair attacks to steal fish from the mouths of hapless gulls; and other denizens of the lagoon, such as sea turtles,
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