… to look for humpback whales in Banderas Bay. We were a bit surprised to find our boat was a small inflatable Zodiac. We climbed aboard, sitting on small benches with no restraints and only tiny life jackets for the 19-mile ride.
Our knowledgeable captain quickly found a large humpback whale who spouted a few times, then dove deeply. A few minutes later another whale spouted, large and playful, and waved each of his flippers in turn before diving.
There were suddenly multiple spouts on the horizon: it was a courting group, three males pursuing a single female. They surfaced repeatedly, tussling each time. The female selects a single male to mate with, and determines whether or not the mating results in pregnancy (presumably based on the male’s performance). We only got one blurry fluke shot.
The last whales we saw were a mother and a small baby. The most productive mothers have a calf every 3-4 years; the average is closer to 5-7 years. After the one year gestation period, mothers return to their birthplace from the summer feeding grounds in Canada and Alaska to give birth. The humpbacks, both male and female, don’t eat during their four-month stay in Mexico, and mothers can lose half their body weight of up to 40 tons. Babies weigh a ton at birth, and gain up to a ton a week for their first month, drinking 30 gallons of milk a day. In the bay, the only danger to the calves are orcas, which aren’t actually whales, but very large dolphins. Humpbacks, who are usually solitary animals, will group together to protect mothers and babies under attack by orcas.
The captain stopped the boat briefly and tossed a microphone over the side so we could listed in on the courtship songs of male whales in the bay. Amazing! Every male has a unique song which remains the same every year. Another fantastic day!
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