My Three Days with Gray Whales

By Carolyn Short • Illustrated by Bart Rivers

April 1
This morning our 85-foot boat, the Pacific Queen, entered Laguna San Ignacio. This lagoon cuts into the Baja peninsula of Mexico. It is one of the main winter homes of the gray whales. I had heard that these whales would let people touch, pet, and even kiss them. I wanted to meet these friendly giants.

Most gray whales spend their summers eating tiny shrimp-like crustaceans and other little creatures in the polar seas off the Alaskan coast. In the fall, the whales migrate south. They travel 6,000 miles to the warm, shallow lagoons of Mexico’s Pacific coast. There the mothers give birth to their young. In the late winter or spring, they begin their six-to-eight-week journey back to the northern seas.

Whale hunters discovered gray whales in these lagoons in 1846. During the following decades, the whales were hunted almost to extinction. Since 1937, the gray whale has been protected under international treaties, and the species was listed as endangered in 1969.

Efforts to stop the hunting were successful. Today these gray whales—those that live along the west coast of North America—are no longer listed as endangered. Their population has grown to about twenty-six thousand.

	It's hard to imagine what a whale looks like when all you can see is a little part. It's like looking at an iceberg.

That first day, I eagerly climbed into the small open boat, or skiff, that would take us out to the whales. I could see whale spouts in the distance. When whales come to the surface to breathe, their warm moist breath shoots up, condensing into a cloud of mist. Our skiff headed toward the spouts.

Suddenly our guide, Scooter, pointed to a mother whale and her baby following us. He told us that splashing would attract the baby, so we splashed. Whoosh! Spray shot up. The baby’s head surfaced next to our boat.

It’s hard to imagine what a whale looks like when all you can see is a little part. It’s like looking at an iceberg. Most of it is under-water. Gray whales are 14 to 16 feet long when they’re born and weigh from 1,100 to 2,000 pounds. That’s as heavy as an average car. A mother whale may be 35 to 50 feet long and weigh from 20 to 40 tons. That’s the size of a big school bus!

This baby swam from one side of the skiff to the other, swam to mama, returned to the skiff, did barrel rolls just under the surface of the water, and returned again. I leaned out and kissed him. It left a salty taste on my lips.

Barnacles were beginning to grow on his head. Every gray whale has these little crustaceans attached to it. The barnacles feed on tiny creatures that pass by as the whale swims.

Someday this baby whale will have lots of big barnacles, just like his mama. When she surfaced, she looked like a barnacle-covered boulder.

Mama swam under our skiff, bumping it gently. Then she pushed our boat while Scooter shouted, “Push the boat, Mama. Push the boat!” When mama swam out from under our skiff, she touched her snout to her baby’s snout in a whale kiss. Then the two dived, leaving behind a smooth, glassy patch of water on the surface.

April 2
We hadn’t gone far when a mama and her baby swam up to us. Two more pairs joined them. Imagine three mama whales and three babies surrounding one
little skiff!

One of the babies had an orange scar on its side. Scooter explained that a shark had probably attacked the baby. The color is caused by the orange whale lice that gather in the wound. By feeding on the infected tissue, they help clean the wound.
Another baby let me rub it. Its skin felt like hard, smooth plastic. I had expected that it would feel soft, like leather.

One mama tried again and again to lead her baby away from our boat. The baby kept coming back. Mama swished her powerful finlike flukes up and down under the water. They must have been at least eight feet across. I could imagine what would happen if that huge tail crashed against our skiff. Since the baby wouldn’t follow his mother, we left. Who wants to argue with a 30-ton mama?

Ahead, we saw a whale spy-hopping. The whale thrust its head straight up out of the water. It’s thought that whales spyhop to check out their surroundings. Who was watching whom?

Another group of whale watchers said they saw a baby open its mouth. They could see yellowish-white plates of baleen—instead of teeth—hanging from its top jaw. The baleen looked like a fine-toothed comb.

There are two main kinds of whales, toothed and baleen. Gray whales have baleen, which acts like a sieve. After a whale sucks up a mouthful of water and food from the ocean bottom, it heads toward the surface. The water drains out of the mouth through the baleen plates, leaving behind a trapped mouthful of food.

April 3
One pair of whales came close but didn’t stay. We saw a couple of whales spyhop. Another whale dived within 20 feet of our skiff, raising its flukes vertically into the air. Bright white markings gave it a marbled look. What a sight!

Our three days in the lagoon are over. This afternoon we will leave. We wish we could stay longer, but the whales are leaving, too. With each passing day, more gray whale mothers and their babies are setting out on their long journey to the polar seas.

Soon the lagoon will be whaleless. No whooshing whale spouts. No splashing whale bodies. All summer the lagoon will sit quietly, waiting for the fall, when its friendly giants will return.