shark diving blog, video blog, swimming with sharks, eli martinez, eli the shark guy, eli the shark guy martinez, eli shark, shark diver magazine, shark diver

magdalena bay

2024 Grey Whale Trip Report!

I just finished up our trip report for the first trip of the 2024 season. Grey Whales off Magdalena Bay, Mexico. And man what an epic trip.

I have to be honest, I was a bit nervous that the trip would be a bit of let down, because our 2023 trip was so good. I just could not see how this trip could be any better, or at least just as good.

It far exceeded my expectations and we all had an amazing time on this trip. Baja does not disappoint.

I have attached a link for you all to check out the story for yourselves. I hope you enjoy…

Trip Two Ends and I am home!

The glamorous life on the road. We found a place to sleep for a couple of hours at the airport, during our four hour layover.

 Travel day, I am home after 24 hours of travel. We took the long way home. We left San Carlos at 6:30AM and drove the 5 1/2 hours to San Jose del Cabo airport to drop off our friends who joined us. After that we sat in the airport and waited for our red-eye flight back to Texas. We landed in Mexico City at 1am, our next flight was at 5am. We didn’t get home until 8AM the next morning.

Crappy flight schedule.

So worth it though… This has been one hell of a Baja adventure. Sadly I broke my word to myself and did not journal every night after getting back to the hotel room. The days out on the water off Mag Bay are long. Really long, and you are just beat when you get back from the sea. 

The internet signal is also bad out in Mag Bay, so sharing blogs and vlogs was not an option. But the good part is I have a long-ish break in between these trips, and my next ones, so I will be sharing clips and stories from this adventure over the next few weeks. 

and there will be some good ones…

Magdalena Bay did not disappoint. We had a fantastic adventure with great people - Baja and the wildlife here is first-class. This was one of the best experiences we have ever had at Mag Bay and I can’t wait to share.

The grey whales were friendlier than ever and gave us all so many unique opportunities to capture images and videos of them. We even had some great encounters with a three-week-old baby. 

The baby was a bit shy, but its mom encouraged it to come in close, teaching it to swim and play around the boats. What is remarkable is this behavior only happens when the whales are in these Bays.

When the whales are out in the open ocean, they return to being shy and untrusting and do not like to be close to the boats. But in the Bay, some whales truly love interacting with people… they are such amazing animals. 

And when you think about it, humans once visited these Bays to hunt the whales for their oil. As a result, we nearly brought these beautiful animals to the brink of extinction due to human greed. Sadly the Makah tribe off Washington is still trying to kill grey whales as part of their ancestral rights. Hoping that tradition comes to an end.

Anyway, I will share more blogs with you all this week, and trips, and newsletters and updates on next season's trip.

Until then, my friends, stay tuned and thank you for reading.