Baja Mexico: Ojo de Liebre

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you, those are people trying to pet a 14 meter male Ballena Gris [Grey Whale] or as I prefered to call them “Big A$$ Whales!” with a bit of a scream on the end of that. we arrived at Ojo at about 9 am and had an amazing breakfast of fresh fruit and pastries in order to get out on the water as soon as possible [$38 US for 1.5 hours]. I’ll admit that if I had know that the whales would get this close I probably would’ve stayed on dry land. But I’m glad I didn’t. They actually got alot closer, we touched them and we got “snotted” on several times when they would blow the water out of their blow holes onto us, which after the 3rd time we realized wasn’t “accidental.” They are massive and they would bump the boat playfully and come up to be petted, turning on their sides so they could surface with one huge eye staring right at us. it was a surreal experience of being watched by an animal that we couldn’t communicate with but that seemed to enjoy our company as well as understand we were animals too.

The water was amazingly clear and warm and the males were playful. The females with calves don’t come near as close, but at one point we had 5 whales around our panga [small boat…very small i might add] we had the best interaction with them and there were two very happy semi pro Latino photographers in our boat of 7.

I wore my life jacket in the event of a water landing, but was thankfully spared a swim, even with a gentle, curious creature. But if you ever get the chance to reach out and touch a Grey Whale on a warm summer day, I can vouch that it’s a once in a lifetime experience, even with the snot.

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