Sunrise found our quiet ship leaving her evening anchorage and making her way north towards Boca de Soledad, translated, "the mouth of solitude". The morning activities included whale watching near the entrance, or boca, and short walks in the sand dunes that are on either side of this mouth leading out to the Pacific Ocean.
We left in Zodiacs and began the brief journey into this gray whale nursery. At short distances from the Sea Lion we had all seen the spouts of cow-calf pairs as the whales milled about inside this protected lagoon. Slowly we approached several gray whales and watched as the small nose of a baby would surface, take a breath and return to moving gracefully through the shallow water. The mother would then rise and take a much larger breath while remaining within inches of her baby, and then return to her casual swimming.
At the beginning of our Zodiac tours the tide was ripping into the bay as a full high tide was nearly finished. The mother whales seemed to be heading their babies out into the surf, for sea trials, getting their young ready for the long migration to northern waters rich in food supplies.
Our morning observations brought us many close looks at the very tactile and close relationship that these gray whales have with their young. Again and again we saw babies rolling over "mom"; pectoral flippers and flukes showing of both mom and baby! It was amazing to watch these marine mammals interacting as they have for hundreds of thousands of years and yet completely comfortable with our presence
