Cabo's Biggest Visitors

Very special visitors arrive every year just in time to settle in for the perfect weather Cabo is now famous for. However, they won’t be golfing or fishing or soaking up the sun like most of our tourists enjoy.   Several thousand come a long distance and stay for a well rested 5 months. Just like those Canadian relatives we call Snow Birds who flee winter conditions and head south to Arizona and Florida for half the year. Instead of spending money on hotels, restaurants, margaritas and activities, they actually bring in thousands of dollars in revenues. These special guests appear with their families in tow travelling 2 long months to get here and leaving zero carbon footprints. They swim 5000 miles from Alaska and have only two things on their minds… mating and birthing babies.

Big beautiful gentle giants

Our Grey whales and Humpback whales arrive every November and leave for their northern summer home each April. It doesn’t take much luck at all to see them up close and personal even when sitting on the beach with a Corona in your hand. Of course, be careful as it is easy to mistaken a baby whale for the more common species, a larger beer bellied man splashing about in a speedo 😊

We locals await the first sightings, always in November, and boast to everyone we know, “I saw a whale today.   I saw a whale today.”  (Usually skipping and jumping up and down with joy). Legend has it that whales are our distant cousins, being so darned smart, and they breath air just like us smaller above water creatures.

As well they are considered the most intelligent mammals on earth. I believe this to be true. Many boats of all sizes carrying sightseeing tourists go whale watching every single day and snuggle close to our 50-foot long relatives who are swimming inches away and could capsize each boat causing mass hysteria and death… but they never do. They seem as interested in us ‘smaller peeps’ as we are in them. They are nosy, just like Aunt Martha, wanting to sit close and likely wondering why on earth we wear such ridiculous clothes. They truly love us.

By the way, the largest of all whales is a Blue Whale reaching sizes of up to 100 feet long! To give you some perspective, most panga fishing and tour boats are about 20 feet in length.

Both our species feed babies with rich mothers milk. Our human milk is about 1.5 perfect fat and to compare - cows milk is about 4 percent fat and whales milk is 40 percent fat. Calves gain 175 pounds a day! That is the equivalent of attaching a short football player to you every day for one and a half years! In fact most adult Humpback whales reach 35 to 45 tons, which is approximate weight of 500 people.

There are 79 species of whales better known to scientists as cetaceans. (A Greek word). We humans have blubber just like they do except the whales can be up to 20 inches thick. This thermal thickness is a necessity, which keeps them warm for the northern Alaskan cold waters where they binge eat on Krill every day. We humans have no excuse at all for maintaining purposeful fat. (Tacos have zero calories)

Our cousins love to show off for us and fly right out of the water, breaching high above, falling and splashing award winning belly flops. Every single time we witness such a fantastic moment we ‘ohhh and ahhh’ and squeal with delight.   What showoffs!  I like to think this playful romp housing is just for our entertainment but in realty each time a whale breaches they are trying to shake free the heavy barnacles and lice. They can be burdened with 1000 pounds of the little bastards.   Breaching can also offer them a brief glimpse of who’s in the neighborhood.

Spy hopping is another way these giants look around, barely poking their enormous heads out of the water and turn around slowly like a submarine periscope.  Snoopy buggers.

Watching a mom with her new calf is a spiritual experience.   You see her gently raising her newborn to the waters surface to breath life for the first time.  She then shows him how to come up for air and he copies her wanting Moms approval.    Her large dorsal fin pops up through the water and she blows, then her little calf’s dorsal fin pops up and he blows.   They do this over and over several times until his first of life’s lessons are learned.  Wow 😲

Moms are very protective of their calves and will fight to the death if a stray Killer whale sneaks into our safe waters wanting the easy prey of a young calf. Mom will battle to the end. To witness such a sight is overwhelming with the piercing high-pitched squeals and steady pounding of ‘fluke slapping’ using her 20 foot flipper churning up the water and her flailing body between her baby and the Orca. You hold your breath so long wanting her to win but when the water finally settles down, you never really know the outcome but hope to God Mom won.

The Grey whale tries to make it out of the water with his whole body but rarely does. (Hey fatty)

Amazing too is that each whale species ‘blows’ differently, their personal signature - high and narrow sprays or shorter and wide sprays. Some of our local boat captains can actually tell the difference. Really?

If you have the time you must visit Magdalena Bay, a long but beautiful seven-hour drive north of Cabo or a short one-hour flight. The one-day long Eco-friendly tour arranges transportation from the little dirt airstrip to the bay, your small skiff, captain, lunch and flight back in time for a great dinner.    My trip a few years ago included several friends so I made sure to reserve our spots.  The little plane holds 12 folks with the pilot. We arrived at the Cabo private airport and found there were 13 of us! 
Now what?
I’ll tell you what … the captain pulled out a lawn chair and my friend volunteered to sit in it. Yup, no seat belt. (Please don’t tell the FAA).

We are so lucky to own great little gadgets for videoing all the excitement of a whale-watching trip. Having just received my new iPhone 4 with the option of having both the front and back camera to record I was ready to capture all the action on video! Quickly we saw the blow and our boat captain raced to get closer. The music was festive and the air charged with excitement to be seeing whale tails and blows so darn close we could taste the exhaled salty spray. I videoed the excitement holding the iPhone as steady as I could not only recording the fantastic whale tail and dorsal fin action but the loud whoops and hollers from my friends. The sun was glorious and the sky a perfect blue background for the exhilaration we all felt. Gleefully encouraging her, all yelling in unison ‘Tail, tail, tail.  Breach. Breach. Breach.” We wanted her to show off!

I couldn’t wait to review the recorded event with all that excitement. Oops, the entire video was of my face! I love technology 😅

By the way … only the male whales sing.