Whale of a Time

On our second last day we booked a whale tour.  We got a taxi ride to the wharf and had to hoof it the last little way.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle at the wharf when they tried to send us off to another pier but in yhe end we were in the right place,

Our boat was a catamaran but they were not using the sails.  We passed a giant cruise ship on our way out of the harbour.

In about 15 minutes we found our first whale with her calf.  Every year about 500 whales winter in the Bahia de Banderas.  They come here to breed and a year later the females birth their calves here.  Fun fact: they don't eat while they are here, relying on fat reserves from their summer of eating up north.  

There was a cute young family sitting in front of us in the bow.

This is what we saw of the whales:  fins,

Tails flipping,

More fins,

Flukes,

Splashing,

The reality of trying to photograph a whale is you see it pop up and grab your camera just in time for it to go under. Then you focus on the spot waiting for it to come up again but now it's moved to another location.

The whales were not jumping out of the water like you see in National Geographic.

At the very end of our tour a baby whale was breaching but by then Leo's battery was dead (his battery charger stopped working) so no photos.

Having a whale of a time!  But not as good a time as the drunk lady behind us that I cut out of this selfie. She was taking full advantage of the open bar!

Coming back into the harbour we passed the Pirate Ship.  There's a tour every night, including a fireworks display we could watch from our condo.