Bad luck and Still More Whales

The Bad
We lost the left mirror on the Royal Palms yesterday. It was pretty scary. I may have mentioned how narrow the roads are here--18 feet total, which means 9.5 feet per lane, and no shoulder. The Royal Palms is 102" wide, not counting the mirrors, so when you do the math, you see there's no room to spare, especially when a big truck is coming the other way. That's what happened yesterday. This big black truck actually went over the center line, and, although Steve saw him coming,with no shoulder, there was no place for us to get out of his way. His mirror hit ours with a horrendous bang and sheared it right off. It even scraped the side of the Royal Palms; luckily no damage except a black mark. We weren't able to retrieve whatever might have been left of the mirror because there was no place to pull off and/or turn around for miles. When we got to the next town, Steve removed the center rear view mirror and duct-taped it where the old one was. It isn't great, but at least he can see behind us again. The other "ouch" about this mishap is that the mirror unit will cost $350 to replace. Steve has emailed a couple of RV places in Yuma to see if we can get it done as we're going through there on the way home next week. Otherwise, we'll wait till we get home.

Still more Whales
Guerro Negro, where we are staying now, is one of the three spots on the Baja where you can take tours to see ballena gris (grey whales). Most folks say ist's the best place--it has the largest population of whales--1000 or more-- many of whom are "friendly." The lagoon where they hang out to give birth, breed, and just hang out is a protected area--you have to go with a guide--no private boats, even non-motorized ones, allowewd. Many many peopole report being able to actually touch the whales here. We went out this morning to try our luck. The ride out to the lagoon wss interesting in itself. The lagoon is located on the edge of some salt flats, and there's a huge salt plant out ther that you have to drive right through the middle of to reach the boats. Also, the lagoon is surrounded by salt marshes, and there are birds galore--herons, egrets, ibis, and many osprey nesting right along the road. We got to see several nesting pairs and their babies perched on the edge of thier nests.

We climbed aboard a small panga with Capitan Cito and five other touristas, three from Germany. Within 15 minutes, we started seeing whales, and at times were totally surrounded by them. There are lots of rules to protect the whales. You can only get within 30 or 40 feet of them, and then wait for them to come and check you out. The captain puts the motor in neutral or turns it off completely, so there's no risk of harm to the whales. And there can be no more than three boats approaching the same whale, so as not to scare it away. We had lots of whales within 15 to 20 feet of our panga, and several times, right next to it. I got sprayed with whale spit (not really spit, but water from the blowhole). By patting gently on the side of our panga and splashing his hand in the water, our capitan was able to catch the attention of a curious baby whale, who came in for a closer look. He (or she?) stayed around for nearly 10 minutes, swimming back and forth under our boat, rolling over first on one side then the other to look at us out of one eye, then completely sticking his hed out of the water several times as well. He was almost, but not quite, within touching distance. Darn! He was huge--almost as long as our boat--already covered with baby-size yellow barnacles, and absolutely adorable. Later, we went further out in the lagoon, near the entrance to the Pacific Ocean. That's where the males mostly hang out. They arn't as curious or friendly as the moms and babies and don't come as close, but boy, do they put on a show! We saw many of them breaching, which is when they leap out of the water, exposing up to two-thirds of their bodies. And, while we were just bobbing around eating our box lunces, we watched a pair of them "play," to put it politely. Steve says I have a dirty mind and that playing was all they were doing, but Capitan Cito agreed with my take on it.

Tomorrow it's on to Catavina, home of the boulder fields.