{"id":316,"date":"2012-05-30T14:24:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T20:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/?p=316"},"modified":"2012-05-31T11:09:32","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T17:09:32","slug":"our-visitors-are-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/our-visitors-are-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"Our visitors are gone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We had some visitors from the United States last week.<\/p>\n

We took them around to a couple of places most tourists never see, showed them a few of our favorite hangouts, took them to a couple of shops where we knew they would get some good deals.<\/p>\n

Then, we took them to our favorite beach, and the water? It looked so empty.<\/p>\n

The whales, you see, have left for the summer.<\/p>\n

We explained to our friends how we would sit on the beach for hours, locked behind our binoculars, staring out to sea for those \u201cpoofs,\u201d as my wife called them, that would burst from the water indicating a whale spout.<\/p>\n

The migrating gray whaless arrive here each fall to give birth to their young. They nurse them, get them seaworthy, then in late spring, head back north. There are also blue whales, humpbacks and a few orcas in the water here, but they are not terribly active or in close to shore once the temperatures start to rise.<\/p>\n

We explained to our guests how just about every time we came to the beach this season, we would see several whales, some just cruising, others frolicking on the horizon.<\/p>\n

It was, we explained, a very good season.<\/p>\n

On one trip, we saw more than a half dozen very active whales. They seemed to come in pairs and each pair was more animated than the other until, finally, the last group put on a show for about 20 minutes, dancing offshore. They were leaping, spinning, twirling. They would head one way, then another. They would disappear below the surface, only to explode from the water in a mighty leap, exposing their entire massive bodies to the air, before splashing and diving. We saw flippers extend out of the water and, it seemed, wave towards shore. We saw tails slapping the surface.<\/p>\n

It was lovely.<\/p>\n

I went out on the water several times on fishing boats during that time and encountered I don\u2019t know how many of these incredible creatures within a few yards of the panga. Despite their enormity, they are incredibly fluid and graceful as they glide through the water. They have these big, beautiful, soft eyes that seem to smile at you as they pass. They move effortlessly. They are curious, social, marvelous.<\/p>\n

We have seen and helped release baby sea turtles and it was an amazing experience. We have seen schools of dolphins skimming the surface, leaping in tandem, chittering as they go. It\u2019s exciting to see sharks flash through the water, exhilarating to sit on top a school of feeding game fish.<\/p>\n

But, there\u2019s nothing that compares with sighting a pod of whales, those gentle, beautiful creatures who, for centuries, were decimated by the fishing fleets that would chase them across the sea for their blubber, oils, meat.<\/p>\n

They swim freely now, thanks to international laws that spare them from the whaler\u2019s harpoon, and they seem happy, at peace when we see them on their annual visit.<\/p>\n

But, for now, the water is empty and we miss them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ed Kociela is a writer for Los Cabos Magazine. You can reach him by email at <\/em>edkociela.mx@gmail.com<\/a>. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com\/EdKociela.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had some visitors from the United States last week. We took them around to a couple of places most tourists never see, showed them a few of our favorite hangouts, took them to a couple of shops where we knew they would get some good deals. Then, we took them to our favorite beach, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,1],"tags":[125,20,21,52,139,42,51,138,137,134],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loscabosguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}