By Patty Somlo
I didn’t know the Spanish word for mating, apareamiento, since I’d never had an occasion to use it. That is, until now.
The captain of our boat stood behind me, while I held onto the side from a narrow blue padded bench. When I’d asked his name, he replied, “Bonné,” unusual, even if we weren’t speaking Spanish in a foreign country. He was wearing a bright yellow windbreaker with the hood up, over a large-billed cap. Covering his nose and the lower half of his face, he’d stretched a black mask. If I didn’t know better, I might have feared that instead of steering our small boat out into the lagoon, he was preparing to rob us.
The weather was far from what I would consider fine. The day had dawned cloudy. Since I was getting sprayed with warm saltwater, as Bonné throttled the boat at a quick clip through the lagoon, I hadn’t realized rain was falling. Once Bonné stopped the boat, I understood. A light, but determined, drizzle was dampening my rain jacket.
Before stepping into the boat on this unseasonably wet and cold morning, I learned more than I ever would remember about the California gray whale, an education that began miles north in a San Diego hotel. I now knew the Spanish name for the gray whale, la bellena gris, and that these particular whales had baleens, a filter feeding system, instead of teeth. I also knew that the California in the name California gray whale did not refer to my home state, but the place I found myself on this gloomy day, Baja Sur California, Mexico.
I was on a trip with a group of strangers, except for a longtime friend. The previous year, I’d been on two other multi-day journeys with folks I didn’t know. Just over a year before, my status had changed from that of a married woman to being a widow. Alone in the world, whose natural riches I had always loved, I was determined to keep going, rather than spend my days nursing grief at home alone.
My journey to this remote lagoon began with one determined vow. Following the death of my beloved husband from cancer, I pledged to make every effort to create a happy and meaningful life.
Moments after the captain stopped the boat, we spotted our first whale breaching. From then on, the morning was filled with sightings, including the spectacular rise into the air, a tail flapping against the water, a huge head coming out and staying above the surface, known as spyhopping, and spouting, the exhalation of breath and water that resembles fog. The whales kept their distance, but the sight of so many in swimming range was a thrill. For a good hour, I forgot I was sitting in a boat getting soaked from a cold rain. I forgot that a little more than a year ago, I watched Richard, the love of my life, take his last breath. I forgot the fear I felt before this trip started or that I might be too old to have such experiences or know happiness again.
At one point, there was a commotion in the water. One of my fellow sailors noted there was more than one whale in that spot. A third whale swam up. Our captain then announced, “They are mating.”
That’s when I asked, “Como se dice mating en Español?” and Bonné answered, “Apareamiento.”
Over the next several days, I would learn nearly a textbook’s worth of knowledge about California gray whales and this odd, interesting place where they return each year. After a few months feeding in Alaska, the gray whales start a five-thousand-mile journey south to the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico, more specifically, its southern part, Baja California Sur. They come to one of three lagoons to mate, for mothers to give birth, and calves to get bigger and stronger, prepared to make the five-thousand-mile journey to Alaska with their moms. My group was here to spend time in two of those lagoons, the Ojo de Liebre (Eye of the Rabbit) Lagoon in Guerrero Negro, and the San Ignacio Lagoon, outside the town of the same name.
The commotion we witnessed in the water that Captain Bonné informed us was the whales mating involved one female and several males. As is common among most species, males compete for females here in Baja. Once one male prevails, there’s still a need for the rejected suitor to hang around. He will stay and help the happy couple, by lying underneath the female to keep her afloat, while the act takes place.
A friend, Marla, who loved journeying to off-the-beaten-path spots when young, has remarked more than once that it’s too late for that kind of travel now. Everyone travels these days, even to remote destinations, she says, documenting each moment on social media. There’s nowhere left to experience the tantalizing, and at times dangerous, sensation that you are truly in a foreign place, where few people, especially Americans, dare to go.
While her opinion fits many tourist sites, I would beg to differ about the nearly six-hundred-mile stretch of Baja California I traveled to see the surprisingly stunning and vast desert and lagoons, all part of the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve UNESCO World Heritage Site, Latin America’s largest wildlife sanctuary. This area, I came to learn, is a wildly unpopulated and lightly visited place, something I hadn’t expected but was thrilled to enjoy.
A half-hour before Bonné revved the engine and we started racing back to shore, I was drenched and chilled. My supposedly waterproof pants had soaked straight through to my skin. My teeth literally chattered.
The following morning, we woke to a cloudless blue sky. A van carted us out a partially paved and partially gravel and teeth-knocking, bumpy road. Along the way, we passed pools of pale turquoise water, framed by bright white piles of salt, surrounded by copper-colored shiny wet mud.
After an hour’s drive past a vast stretch of emptiness, with wooden towers here and there holding huge osprey nests from which a chick’s white head would occasionally pop up, we reached the shore of San Ignacio Lagoon. Another talk about whales and boat safety followed, before the distribution of bright yellow vests and dividing the group, this time into three separate boats.
I climbed to the back and said, “Buenos Dias,” to the captain, who appeared too young to drive a car, let alone this boat. His name, I learned, was Fabián, which made me think of the word fabulous, an adjective that could easily describe the captain’s sweet smile and large dark eyes.
We raced away from shore, watching pelicans perform their awkward dives, then righting themselves to float. Twenty minutes later, Fabián stopped the boat and we all periscoped around, searching for the giant marine mammals we’d spent hours riding south to find.
They were there, we quickly saw, to the right of the boat. Unfortunately, the whales were far, a line of them, one after the other, spouting and spyhopping, occasionally rising into the air. Fabián let me know that he couldn’t move closer to where they congregated because that area was outside the allowed observation zone.
We returned to the town of Guerrero Negro the following day, for our last chance to encounter la bellena gris. I quietly scolded myself not to get my hopes up, a road that could hurtle me straight to bitter disappointment. Yes, everything I’d read assured me that the gray whales that winter in these lagoons are known to swim right up to the boats and let ecstatic tourists touch them. Yes, I had also heard this was the only place in the world where such close encounters between humans and whales occurred. I had seen countless photos that proved the point. Scientists have thought that mother gray whales might at times encourage their calves to shimmy alongside the boats and meet the visitors.
We couldn’t have asked for a better day, clear and warm, with barely a breeze. As on the previous two days, I climbed over the blue-padded benches to the back of the boat, greeted the captain with a cheerful, “Buenos Dias,” and asked his name. After answering, “Normán,” the captain asked mine. Though I’ve long used my nickname, Patty, I gave him my birth name, Patricia, because it’s more common in Latin America. Then he proceeded to talk. And talk.
We raced away from the dock, a ride in these short few days I’d come to love. We sailed past pelicans, the occasional sleek black dolphin curving up out of the water and curling back down, cormorants, and some seals.
It took less than a minute after we stopped before the whale sightings started. And then it happened.
Not knowing the signs, I would have missed the first one, if Normán hadn’t alerted me.
“Patricia. Aqui, aqui,” he shouted, leaning over the right side of the boat and stabbing his index finger down toward the water.
At first glance, there appeared to be a large white blob, under a thin drape of water inches from the boat. The next moment, what now was a giant gray body surfaced next to Normán. His fingers flicked through the water and the whale seemed to nudge his hand, as if he were an old friend who’d arrived for a chat. The whale’s mottled skin, light and dark gray, was covered with barnacles, tan in the center and surrounded by short, light-yellow points. The head was huge. The whale opened her mouth and Normán reached in and stroked.
Within minutes, our boat turned into a mob of crazed men and women who’d instantly reverted to being children. The dozen people in our boat would all rush to whatever side the whale was on, causing the panga to tip precariously toward our visitor. Arms reached out, desperately trying to touch the whale, who seemed serene, as if this raucous reception was an ordinary occurrence in her life.
Once the first whale arrived, others followed. A pattern quickly emerged. Initially, the whale would swim over and surface on one side of the boat. Like the family dog, the whale would hang out there, letting these strangers pet her, whisper endearments, take photos, and scream. Then she would slide under the boat, this forty-nine foot, forty-one ton creature, without upending the little vessel or barely rocking it, then resurface on the other side, for more petting and shrieking.
Normán, who I now felt certain had a unique talent for luring whales to the boat, seemed to have taken it upon himself to make sure I had an unforgettable time here in Baja. Over and over again, he let me know when a whale was close and in which direction I should plant my gaze. He kept urging me to get to the side of the boat, reach out, and touch the visiting whale.
I was as eager as Normán to have that once-in-a-lifetime experience, but so were my fellow sailors. Several of them easily made their way to my side of the panga, making it impossible for me to get close.
Finally, though, I noticed a small opening and pressed forward. Normán urged me to think of the whale like a dog and pet her, which I did, feeling the smooth and soft wet skin as she floated, seemingly content to let my fingers stay on her as long as possible.
As our time on the water went on and Normán continued to act as if I were his only client, I started to believe that in addition to being a whale whisperer, our captain might also have been a widow whisperer. While he knew nothing about me, I felt at times he could see the immense loss I had been enduring and wanted to make things, at least on this special day, a tiny bit cheerier. Strangely, though I’d given Normán my formal birth name, several times while alerting me to the arrival of another whale, I thought I heard him call me Patty.
Before long, two, and then three whales were hanging out with us. To say this was magical is an understatement as massive as these creatures’ size, which you can only fully appreciate when close. Though I’ve spent countless hours alongside the ocean, including during three glorious childhood years living on the Island of Oahu, I have never experienced anything remotely like this. Whatever one might say about differences between humans and animals, it was clear to all of us, bobbing in a remote lagoon a short distance from the Pacific Ocean, that we had a special connection to these whales and the whales knew it.
Our bus broke down on the return journey north, an hour and a half south of Ensenada. We had stopped at one of the handful of Pemex gas stations on the two-lane highway for a bathroom break. Alas, the comfortable carriage that had ferried us six hundred miles through the desert to visit the whales and several hundred miles back refused to go on. A group of us decided to walk around an empty field behind the gas station to get a bit of exercise and pass the time while we waited for a rescue bus to arrive.
It was dark and raining when we entered the City of Ensenada. For the first time since leaving the lagoons behind there was traffic, and the road had widened to several lanes on each side. Also, this was the only town we’d passed through all week in which the roads entering onto the highway were paved.
Though we’d only been in the open spaces and water of the Baja Peninsula for a week, I felt as if I’d journeyed to another planet, or rather an earlier time. Seeing traffic and lights, crowds of people walking and waiting at bus stops, and eventually stepping into the lobby of the elegant hotel where we planned to spend the night, was almost too much stimulation to take in all at one time.
We met for dinner in a large private room, down several stairs, a half-hour after we arrived. As we’d done each evening in the modest accommodations where we’d stayed on the trip, we raised salt-encrusted margaritas. This night we toasted the journey, our wonderful Mexican guides and driver, the boat captains, and of course our newly-made friends, the California gray whales. The following day, we would cross the infamous border between Mexico and the United States. For the first time in days, we would be able to safely drink water from the tap and not have to dispose of toilet tissue in the wastebasket. Several of us, especially me, were looking forward to what we hadn’t had for a week – a really good cup of strong coffee.
For four and a half years following my husband’s diagnosis of stage four cancer, I hoped for miracles. Every three weeks we awaited results of blood tests that would indicate whether the chemo was working or not. More definitive were full body scans every few months, which let us know if the cancer had spread. As someone prone to depression, anxiety and negative thoughts, I struggled to hold on to hope.
After Richard’s death, a different battle emerged. In between grieving the incalculable loss of the best part of my life, I needed to find a solid and certain reason to go on.
Throughout my life, and especially in the nearly thirty years I shared with Richard, I have found joy and strength, deep and lasting memories, inspiration and faith, and even transformation at times in nature. The one religious experience I have never doubted is what happens to my spirit when standing in front of a meadow bursting with wildflowers or watching sunlight dance off the tips of waves.
Nothing in my hundreds of visits to glorious places can compare with that unforgettable morning, hearing Captain Normán say, “Patricia. Aqui, aqui,” and then kneeling on the blue-padded bench of the panga, to reach my arm over the side and touch the smooth skin of a whale. I have long been drawn to travel, to experience the unexpected, and to hopefully be lifted out of boredom, worry and hopelessness by the beauty of water and light, colors and birds’ flight, and the simple joy of having strong enough legs and lungs to carry me to the top of a mountain or headland, where I feast on the view as the sun drops, painting water and land in rich strokes of orange and mauve. I hold onto hope that in each of those forays out, I might witness a small miracle, like the time Richard and I watched spinner dolphins shoot into the air from the Pacific Ocean and twirl around, off the point at the Kilauea National Wildlife Refuge, on the Island of Kauai, or when two adorable white mountain goats followed me down a trail at Glacier National Park. Even so, I didn’t dare hope for the intimate encounters that occurred in the Ojo de Liebre Lagoon, in the tiny town of Guerrero Negro, in Baja California Sur, Mexico.
The California gray whales we met that day were once hunted in this same lagoon nearly to extinction. For decades, even after the hunting had stopped and the area became protected, the fishermen who live not far from San Ignacio Lagoon feared the whales they called devilfish, because of their ferocious attacks on whaling boats during the hunts.
That belief began to change, though, after a startling encounter. In 1972, a local fisherman, Jose Francisco “Pachico” Mayoral, was out in his panga with his partner, Santos Perez, fishing for grouper, when a large female whale approached the boat. Fearing the whale, Pachico and Santos huddled in the bottom of the boat. But the whale refused to leave. Pachico got up and found himself looking directly into the whale’s huge brown eye. He got a bit braver, reached his hand out and touched the creature. Nothing happened, so Pachico urged Santos to touch the whale as well.
The whale stayed with the fishermen for a good half hour. She never made a single move to hurt them.
After the incident, Pachico began telling the story to other fishermen. They also began to touch these previously scary mammals, when they took their boats out in the lagoon. The results were the same. It now appeared that the creatures they’d feared all these years wanted to be their friends.
Before we headed back to town after this miraculous day, the driver of our van gave us a brief tour of the little neighborhood where Pachico lived, before his death in 2013. The men who live here still earn most of their livelihoods from fishing. During the winter, a lucky handful make extra money taking visitors out in their boats to see and hopefully touch California gray whales.
At one point, we passed a colorful mural, covering the side of a small building. It was a portrait of a simple fisherman, who made an important discovery, contributing a critical piece to our understanding of the gray whales, who winter in the lagoons nearby. Pachico’s courageous move to touch the whale opened the door to connections between humans and these animals, not possible anywhere else in the world.
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Patty Somlo’s books, Hairway to Heaven Stories (Cherry Castle Publishing), The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil) and Even When Trapped Behind Clouds: A Memoir of Quiet Grace (WiDo Publishing), have been Finalists in the International Book, Best Book, National Indie Excellence, American Fiction and Reader Views Literary Awards.