Sunday 2nd February

Woke to a noticeably colder 22°C with everyone on the lookout for whales, there is genuine excitement in the air as we approach the Gulf of California. We have deviated off our course by about 5° to take us across the bottom of the 650 mile peninsula ‘Baja California’ where most of the whales pass on their way into the Gulf. We are told that as we approach we will turn to port, slow down to about 12 knots and follow the coast at about 2 to 3 miles distance around the point. Those of you who are following our course on the chart on the BRIDGE VIEW AND CURRENT POSITION page of the blog will see the little jink that we did. That little bit took us about three hours. As we approached, we saw intermittent spouts indicating the presence of whales but it was not until we turned to port and slowed to 12 knots that we began to see quite a few. The whales were traversing the Cabo San Lucas point between us and the land in pods of three to six. We could see the turbulence in the surface of the sea punctuated by the sight of a black glistening, humps slowly rising out and then disappearing beneath the surface punctuated by the odd fin, spout and tail. The binoculars made all the difference between a mishmash of spray, spouts and turbulence and the clarity of the whales rolling and turning as they made their way into and out of the Gulf, (thanks Paul). For the whole three hours we watched as first one spout was spotted and then another and the little whale spotting boats chased them, first one way and then the other. As we got towards the final part of the coast line we went down to the cabin and watched from the balcony for a while and still they passed. Eventually things calmed down and we once more turned North to resume our course, when it happened! I was leaning against the balcony door just staring at the sea and Carol was sat reading about San Francisco, when about 500 yards away a huge whale shot straight out of the water high in the sky, rolled slowly over and slammed back into the sea. I shouted and Carol shot up to look just in time to see the massive splash with a whale’s tail sticking out of the middle. About a second later there was an extremely loud crack as the sound reached us. Talk about leaving the best till last, pure luck that I was looking and Carol was sat by me, even if she didn’t see the leap, she saw the result and heard the slap.

So folks, not quite just another day at sea, wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Sorry but there will be no photos as it would have been almost impossible to spot then take even if they had been close enough. And the one that was close enough was so unexpected that I was frozen to the spot.