LA VENTANA, MEXICO – The Pacific Ocean was calm and crystal clear—perfect conditions. But there was no movement. For two hours, we hadn’t encountered any animals. I stared out, trying to see something, some animal. Nothing.
I put my camera aside, crossed my arms, and made myself comfortable on the small boat. My mind was calm. When Jacques Cousteau calls a place “the world’s aquarium,” I believe him and book a trip—whether I can afford it or not. The Sea of Cortez is an ocean biodiversity hotspot, full of stories. My first one to visit.
By then, I had already gotten two stories, so I allowed myself to relax a bit.
However, life works mysteriously. There was a third story lurking under the ocean. A big story.
ABOVE: Loreto, the small town from where I attempted to see blue whales in the nearby Marine National Park.
I originally chose the Sea of Cortez for my adventures because of whales. Around 40% of all marine mammal species are found in these waters, making it one of the best places on Earth to see whales and dolphins. However, my focus on this snorkel trip wasn’t whales anymore; I had already done that.
After seeing gray whales in Guerrero Negro, I tried to find blue whales in Loreto and failed.
„This year, we haven’t seen any blue whales around here,“ the local captains told me. „It’s strange, but in recent years, the ocean and the animals have changed.“ Signs of climate change? I accepted my defeat—no more whale encounters this journey.
That left me with only one more species on my list: mating mobula rays.
Mobula rays are the smaller relatives of manta rays. Around April, they gather in the Sea of Cortez by the thousands to mate. The images of this phenomenon are stunning and unique on the planet. After the whales, I was curious about seeing them. This is why I came to La Ventana.
From this little village, situated in a cactus desert and surrounded by mountains and the ocean, I embarked on the vessel of Baja Wild Encounters a couple of hours before.
ABOVE: The shores of La Ventana, where we encountered the first species of this story.
The team onboard was great: two couples—one Mexican, the other Austrian—a TV host from the Philippines, and three crew members: the founder, his right hand, and the skipper. Everyone radiated passion for nature and the animals. I loved it and was in good spirits.
Only five minutes after we set out onto the ocean, my mood became ecstatic: mobula rays were jumping out of the water all around us!
While scientists are still studying the reasons for this peculiar behavior, it is a funny sight. They breach the surface, flap their fins wildly for a few meters as if trying to fly away, only to belly-flop onto the surface.
The founder told me, that this year the mobulas arrived later than in previous years. There weren’t many here yet. This was slightly unusual, and he didn’t know the reason for it. Was that another sign of the changing oceans?
Farther out into the bay, close to the shores, we found some small groups of a few dozen mobula rays. These were the smallest of the mobula species: the mobula munkiana. It was time to go into the water.
When I dived down, I could see them: a group of mobula munkiana moving in unison through the dark turquoise water. After a few moments, they disappeared, only to reappear soon after. They stayed around for a while. I was blissed out. I had gotten what I came for straight away.
After spending some time with the mobulas, we decided to embark on the boat again and search for bigger wildlife. There had been a male sperm whale in the area. For me, everything after the mobulas was a nice bonus, which is why I was so relaxed.
However this feeling changed soon after, when we moved from the shore to the open ocean. I noticed something strange.
ABOVE: A group of mobula munkiana. The visibility underwater wasn’t the best that day.
Spread all over were pairs of air-filled plastic containers. As if reading my mind, the founder answered my question. „Those are shark traps,“ he said in a sober tone.
Shark traps. I had read about them in my research before the trip. It is a cruel, unsupervised practice that violates all recommendations by various conservation organizations. And the thing is: it is legal.
Local fishermen are allowed to hunt sharks year-round legally, except for a recovery period of three months during the shark’s mating season. This is absolute nonsense. The average gestation period of sharks is around a year.
So with their regulation, the Mexican government allows the sharks to mate, only to let all the pregnant sharks get killed by the fishermen after the protected time period.
The fishermen get a modest income from selling shark meat. But what’s perverse about it: distributors often disguise its origin, selling the shark meat in Mexican cities under names like “white fish” or “marlin.” So the consumers who eat their fish tacos are unaware they are eating shark.
And those facts only showcase the “legal” side of shark fishing in Baja California. There is a whole other world of organized crime involvement, shark finning practices to cater to Asian black markets, and more.
ABOVE: The strange sight I noticed floating on the ocean’s surface.
The result of all of this is a drastic decline of all shark populations in recent decades. Today, 25 out of 40 shark species in the Sea of Cortez are listed as either threatened, vulnerable, or endangered.
However, the fault doesn’t lie with the fishermen; it lies with the government. But also with the bad image sharks have thanks to stupid movies like “Jaws” that give them an image of monsters.
It is a false image. I always tell people it is more probable to be killed by a falling coconut than attacked by a shark.
The problem is, if people are scared of sharks, they don’t care to protect them. But it needs the voice of the people to pressure governments to act. Sharks are a keystone species; without them, the ocean collapses.
I got angry at the sight of these shark traps. There were many of them out on the Sea of Cortez.
I documented the traps by taking some pictures and made a note to make people aware of this problem. Then the period of quietness started.
Two hours of nothing.
ABOVE: Shark traps spread all over the ocean. The sight of those made me angry.
After I made myself comfortable, I talked with the founder and TV host about their life stories. They were highly inspiring: both were traveling the world only to hit a point on their journey where they had to decide whether to go back to the normal life they were used to, or to delve deep into the unknown and pursue their dreams. Both of them succeeded.
I was in the middle of a conversation with the TV host when the founder suddenly turned off the motor. We glided over the surface. I noticed that there were two other boats in the area, and the passengers‘ body language was tense. Many of them were standing to get a better view.
„Those guys reported a sighting,“ the founder said in a conspiratorial tone. He fell silent and looked out to the ocean.
Then something big appeared on the surface.
Out of nowhere, with no signs of its presence before, a blue whale sighed out a blow of air. I was startled. The biggest animal on Earth, I couldn’t grasp my luck. I realized that I expressed my excitement with a stunned (and loud) „What the f***!“
It had been a dream of mine to see blue whales. But after Loreto, I hadn’t expected to fulfill this bucket list item in the near future. Maybe someday in Sri Lanka or so. But here was a blue whale.
The animal had a rhythm: three breaths on the surface, then it went down for around ten minutes. The whale swam towards the open Pacific Ocean and always stayed within sight of the dry, desert-like shores.
I noticed the whale was tagged on its dorsal fin.
ABOVE: The unexpected sight of a blue whale. The animal is tagged on the dorsal fin to study this endangered and elusive species.
There is a reason for that: blue whales are an endangered species. During the whaling times, we reduced their numbers to 1% of their original population. So blue whale encounters are rare, and there is still a lot to be explored about them.
For example, scientists recently put out the hypothesis that blue whales are actually communicating throughout the whole ocean with their singing. Their low-frequency calls are so strong that they can travel hundreds if not thousands of kilometers through the ocean. So even though the whales roam the oceans alone most of the time, they keep in touch over long distances.
But besides being interesting, whales are—like sharks—crucial for the survival of this planet. Every second breath we take, we thank the contribution of whales.
Half of our oxygen comes from the oceans. More accurately, from the microscopic plants called phytoplankton. Those plants are also the very base of the marine food web.
When whales defecate, they spread a huge amount of fertilizer into the oceans, causing a blossoming of the phytoplankton. This phenomenon is called the „Whale pump.“ So the more whales exist, the more stable our climate.
However, whales are, despite their popularity, threatened. There is the ongoing exploitation of krill, (their primary food source) in the Antarctic, noise pollution in the oceans, and disgusting hunting practices in Iceland and the Faroe Islands that kill protected whale species (the reason why I won’t support any tourism to these countries).
Additionally, a lack of speed regulations on the ocean causes collisions and deaths among whales. The biggest threat to blue whales nowadays is getting hit by a container ship.
So it is a happy message that since April 2024, whales have “personhood” in Tonga, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, and Aotearoa.
Thanks to the efforts of indigenous groups, whales and dolphins now have the same rights as humans. This is a great step towards indigenous and criminal justice in case a whale or dolphin gets hurt in those countries.
© Baja Wild Encounters
ABOVE: The blue whale swimming out of the Sea of Cortez. Drone shot contributed by Baja Wild Encounters.
We followed the blue whale for some time on its migration route, probably back to the Northern Pacific. It didn’t mind our presence. It was a marvelous experience. The tour was already officially over when we let it swim its way and turned back.
On our journey back, we saw sea lions, a sea turtle, and even two humpback whales appeared next to our boat. Jacques Cousteau had been right; this was truly the aquarium of the world. Even though animal populations were more abundant in his time, I had unexpectedly accomplished two bucket list items. The experiences left me deeply impressed by life.
When I set foot on the ground again, one thing was clear to me:
Mobulas, sharks, whales—all the creatures of the ocean—are part of this incredible interplay of life. They are the support crew that makes it possible for us to experience this bliss of life. Without them, there would be no life for us, and we would be missing something very profound and beautiful. That’s why I love them so much.
So let us protect them.
NOTE: A huge thank you to Baja Wild Encounters for making this story possible. This was by far the best wildlife expedition I have ever experienced. It is rare to find a crew so fueled by passion and love for the animals and this planet, while maintaining their core values of sustainability and ethics.
