Whales, Whales, Whales

It's a funny old world.  The tour we're offering to watch whales off Baja California - that long piece of Mexico which extends down from California - and in the Sea of Cortez has been in the brochure and on the website since August.  Nothing.   Now, all of a sudden, there's been a flurry of interest which is great.

It's a tour which I haven't done personally (yet!) but which I would really love to do.  We use a small boat called Searcher and she's one of the few which has a permit from the Mexican Government to go into the reserve where the Grey Whales are to be found.  Some of the photos are incredible!  The lovely thing about this holiday is that it's not single-minded.  There are lots of shore excursions exploroing the Mexican desert habitats and, of course, birders will be in paradise.   I think I'm talking myself into going - doubt it will be this year but hopefully next.

There's another whalewatching experience to be had in March, this time in Dominica - another of my favourite places.   The Commonwealth Republic of Dominica - the nature island of the Caribbean - is not to be confused with Dominica which offers an entirely different (and to my mind unpleasant) kind of tourism - the kind which abuses the environment and the local people.  Dominica, however, is completely unspoilt, probably because of its low number of white sandy beaches.  The island is "wild, steep and gorgeous" with the mountain sides plunging into the sea creating incredibly deep waters right close to the shore.  Here the resident Sperm Whale have access to their deep feeding; in fact it's the females and calves who stay all year: the males travel all the way up to the Arctic and back every year to take advantage of the nutrient-rich waters in that neck of the world in the northern summer.

Ah well, meanwhile the accounts need to be done, plus a hundred other things which are slightly less glamorous than whalewatching.  Still, it doesn't do any harm to take a little space each day to reminisce and to dream - why else be a tour operator?   Someone once told me that I was "a purveyor of dreams":  I like that.

Comments

[SistaT]

Thank you for the kind comments about Dominica. Glad to see you appreciate what this country has to offer. Just to clear things up: The correct official name of the country is the Commonwealth of Dominica (known commonly as Dominica), not to be confused with the Dominican Republic, the Spanish speaking country that sits next to Haiti.