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A quiet reconciliation with the whale
Tiptoeing through the giants' Baja nursery fosters awe and an
improbable bond.
By DICK RUSSELL
LOS ANGELES TIMES, Times Staff Writer
April 12, 2005
The moment the rose-colored peaks of the Sierra Santa Clara
mountains come into view from the highway, I envision the phenomenon
they embrace: the sanctuary of the gray whales. It is the end
of March, three years since my last visit. This time, it is late
in their birthing season, on the cusp of their beginning the 5,000-mile-long
migration back to the Arctic summer feeding grounds. We are uncertain
how many whales will remain; 37 miles of bone-jarring, washboard
dirt road yet stand between us and the lagoon.
Beyond flat-topped clay cliffs that overlook the desert forests
of tall cardon cactus and thick-trunked elephant trees, the shimmer
of tidal salt flats beckons entry into the realm of las amistosas
‹ the friendly ones.
We arrive in two carloads at Campo Cortez, one of several whale-watching
camps along the lagoon. After lunch we start hiking with half
a dozen other visitors along a quarter-mile path that follows
a pillow-lava rock jetty leading to the lagoon. Beyond the pickleweed
plants and sand verbena with its magenta-colored flowers, Maldo
Fischer and his son Paco wait just offshore in two 26-foot-long
metal pangas. A flock of black brant geese soars overhead, as
our guides drive the boats high enough onto the craggy shore for
us to climb aboard without getting wet.
A quarter of an hour passes before we round a small peninsula
approaching the mouth of the lagoon, where it empties into the
Pacific. This 5-mile-wide channel is the designated area for whale
watching. (No visitors are allowed in the nursery deeper inside
the lagoon.) Mexican regulations permit only 15 pangas here at
any one time; none are allowed to approach the whales. The boats
can only pause, engines in idle, while the choice of making contact
is up to the grays. We are told that, of the 800 or so who were
here a month ago, perhaps 100 mothers and their calves are still
around.
As we enter the channel, the first visible whale sign is a "spy
hop," a vertical thrust jabbing skyward out of the depths,
remaining stationary long enough ‹ or so one imagines ‹
to assess our presence. Now a pair of whales are spotted, lolling
on the surface: the mother's barnacle-crusted forehead glistening
in the sun, the calf emitting a heart-shaped geyser from its twin
blowholes. The whales hold steady not far away, but make no move
in our direction. As the young one disappears underwater, the
fluke waves at us.
It is impossible not to think this way, not to turn these grand
creatures into something familiar. Especially after you first
meet. Their sudden rush toward the panga takes your breath away.
Alongside us now, a 30-ton mother nudges her already 2-ton newborn
toward a matchstick-craft that could capsize in an instant. Yet
the heart's pounding is not from apprehension; no, rather from
a sense of wonderment rarely experienced, and in Laguna San Ignacio,
that never grows old.
The mother bears a large white patch on her left side, near
the knuckles that ridge her back. Her marbled body, all spots
and barnacles, indicates she is an older whale. The baby lifts
its head into the sauna-like spray that cools the outboard engine,
then accompanies mom from stern to bow and back again, leaning
into our touch, opening its mouth wide for a baleen massage. Many
times are we baptized with whale-spray. At last, two of our passengers
plant simultaneous kisses on the baby's rubbery nose.
Among our party is Phila Dunlap, at 85 certainly one of the
oldest ever to make this pilgrimage. Back at camp, sitting outside
her tent, she tells my
wife: "I must sit here and wrap my mind around what I have
been through."
Later, Phila would speak of having been around wild animals all
her life, of having "talked" to her horses. "But
this really is like your pet dogs coming to greet you ‹
exuberance is the word!"
There is, too, a fragility here, a vulnerability you feel during
a fitful night's sleep, tossing on your cot as the wind batters
the tent. Five years ago, this last pristine habitat of the grays
had been poised for the development of a sprawling saltworks;
the same saline buoyancy that makes the lagoon ideal for giving
birth is equally enticing to titans of industry.
A spirited campaign by Mexican and American environmental groups
ultimately scuttled the project, but recent talk of its revival
brings realization that vigilance ‹ not victory ‹
is all that can ever really be declared.
Dawn breaks to brown pelicans diving for prey. As we head out
again, there are a number of whale pairs lined up facing the lagoon's
mouth, as if holding a pre-migratory classroom. Their exhalations
form wispy, whispering rainbows across the aquamarine waters.
For a long time, no visitations. Then a baby whale finally surges
through the waves, mother nowhere in sight. She turns over to
show us her creamy-white belly, one silver-gray eye riveted upon
us. She rises to be stroked and kissed, voraciously friendly,
all but leaping into the boat with us. The half-hour she lingers
overturns time and space.
There is more. Always more. A young whale cavorting with two
bottlenosed dolphins, rolling and leapfrogging over one another,
a game that all appear to enjoy. A huge acrobat balancing the
calf on its back, "presenting her child" until the nose
is perched eye-level with ours.
Why they have chosen to approach human beings here with increasing
frequency over the last generation, no one knows. In the mid-1900s,
whalers had slaughtered their ancestors by the thousands in this
same lagoon, labeling them "devilfish" for their propensity
to fight back by overturning small boats.
The pangas that today propel us among them are the same size
as those whaleboats. Yet now the grays come beseeching the outstretched
hands of people whose forbears once thrust harpoons.
Their forgiveness, indeed their love, is surely one of the planet's
profound mysteries.
The mind grasps at straws of explanation. When the gray whales
arch their tails and vanish beneath the waves, it is as though
they have disappeared into my heart. Their all-penetrating gaze
is what remains when I close my eyes.
Dick Russell is the author of "Eye of the Whale."
