Boca de la Soledad and northernmost tip of Magdalena Island
Magdalena Lagoon “woke up” today in a very good mood: calm waters and bright, warm sun. The most perfect conditions for whale watching that we could ever dream of. Today seemed like a very promising day. Right after breakfast we went aboard our Zodiac rubber boats and started to move towards Boca de la Soledad, but right around the National Geographic Sea Bird some of us found the first gray whales (cow and calf pairs). Here, there and everywhere the whales approached the boats, surprising us with their unexpected but agreeable behavior.
The various whales, with skin were painted in the most pleasant and outrageous combinations of the gray gamma, plus white and black, performed for us their ancestral dances of curiosity, trust and naive-ness, allowing the babies (one month to 1-1/2 months old) to come close while the females stayed under the Zodiacs. The calves rolled over their moms’ backs or gyrated with their heads above the surface of the sea at the boats’ sides. And then we touched, and touched and re-touched the little leviathans’ mouths, snouts and tongues. They seemed to really enjoy those interactions. They seemed hypnotized by the strange anemone-like appearance of our bodies above the water and our hands caressing their skin. Everyone amongst us observed the purity of their beauty and clear hearts reflected in their big, protuberant eyes. They were intense, happy moments… a true spiritual experience, as one of our guests said.
The dune environment was no less lavish than the lagoon, and revealed its treasures for us: introspective, shy and nomadic coyotes, multiple seabird species, most of them busy in their breeding business, and dozens of jackrabbits. In fact, as our amazed naturalists stated, it’s the first time that they observed so many lagomorphs… it seemed like the abundance of whales was contagious and “infected” the land, providing us with such marvelous sights of life.
