My feet were dangling off the side of the boat wearing a
pair of cheap flippers. I had on an
equally cheap diving mask with a snorkel jammed in my mouth. My right arm desperately held on to a pole supporting
the flimsy sun tarp as we floundered in eight-foot swells three miles from
shore. Six very excited Latin American
dive instructors were also in snorkels but outfitted with state-of-the-art
masks and wet suits. The plan was to get
in close to a surfacing whale, and then jump in next to it to observe the
massive creature in the water. Not only does
this fall into the category of “bad idea”, it’s also “illegal” (even in
Mexico).
Allow me to explain.
The previous day I had gone on one of my favorite scuba dives of all
time. If you have ever been to Cabo San
Lucas, there is an area by Lover’s Beach where sea lions lounge on a large rock
and bark away at tourist boats. A
Mexican Dad and I with $22,000 of gear and no real ability jumped in the water
there with a German girl dive guide. She
had been living in the area for months after leaving “a small town in SW Germany”. (“What’s the name of the town?” You never heard of it. “Try me…”
Karlsruhe? “I played a gig at the
Hackerei last Fall. Did you go to university
there?” Oh my God! You do know it!)
The dive began in a small cave filled with bright red
fish. Despite instruction not to disturb
the silt on the bottom, Mexican Dad immediately disturbs it all and fucks up
the visibility for all of us. We leave
the cave and head towards the big rock where the sea lions hang out while
tourist boats rumbled overhead. Then,
like a fighter jet fly by, two sea lions rocketed right over top of us, turned
radically right, zipped in about 3 feet in front of our faces and stared at
us. Just as quickly they zipped off
again. Awesome. We worked our way through a small passage
that serves as a border between the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean. The push of the waves created three feet
forward and one foot back progress. It
was narrow, about 12 feet across and 20 feet deep. Two more sea lions roared straight toward us
overhead and shot by. We cleared the channel
and emerged to find a shipwreck from the 1950s where all sorts of colorful fish
and a suspicious hefty grouper gave us the eye.
We investigated the wreck as the occasional sea lion roared past
unexpectedly. When we ascended for our
safety stop, a huge school of jacks enveloped us in a blanket of shimmering
silver. It was a great dive.
We headed back into the harbor watching the sea lions beg
for bait from the returning fisherman.
Pelicans circled overhead looking for a free meal. Terrible looking fake pirate ships hauled
bachelorette parties out where the captain and I speculated on which girl was
going to barf/cry and which would hold her hair. The sun warmed my skin, cold from the
ocean. It was a nice morning. I helped haul the empty oxygen tanks up the
dock to the captain’s beat up old Ford pickup.
I gave him a farewell and started down the dock when he called out for
me. “Hey man… Ah… If you’re not doing anything tomorrow I’m
taking out some friends to snorkel with whales if you’re into it.” Yeah.
I’m into that! “OK, we leave
before sunup because it’s not technically legal?” OK. “Be
here at 645a.” See you then man.
As you might have guessed, this captain is not the most
legit guy in the area. I tend to have a
skill to find people that operate in, shall we say, “the margins” of their
communities. This guy was employed in
the summer up in Alaska running a commercial fishing boat, and in the winter
came down to Cabo where he lived in a $200 a month apartment above a motorcycle
repair shop. If you needed something in
Cabo that you might not want to ask the concierge at the hotel for, he’s your
guy.
The uber took my associate Mike and I to the dock at exactly
645. It was dark. Fishermen prepped their charters, but it was
too early for the local hustlers to work the area yet. I had asked Mike if he was into going and
might have skimmed a bit on the details.
I think his concern ratcheted up a notch when the captain said “I had to
set five alarms to get up. I was out
drinking until 330 last night. Hey, do
you have gear?” No man. I told you that yesterday. “Oh… I
totally spaced on that. We probably have
some in the hutch.” Did you get that wet
suit for me? “Oh, I thought you had one.”
You got me one yesterday! “Ohhh…
That’s right.” Then we hit the
swells as we headed straight out to sea.
It was cold, and the boat was getting tossed around, mostly because it
was about 15 feet long and not ideal for the conditions. “Tourist Goes Missing In Suspected Sea
Disaster”
The other passengers were all Spanish speaking divers except
for a really skinny blonde kid from South Africa that was some kind of ocean
videographer. There were two women, both
of whom were long haired with groovy hippie anklets, Zen tattoos and perfectly
toned in their professional wetsuits. The
guys had the graceful confidence of truly athletic men in their prime. They were pros. We were two assholes with sunglasses and flip
flops. And we were going to jump in
rough ocean with whales.
We found three gray whales that had surfaced. Their blowholes sent up spray. Their dark black backs arched out of the
water when they dove. The tails would
briefly reveal themselves as the whales went under, hiding from us. We were close enough to see small scars on
their skin. We waited to see if the whales
would surface again, poised to jump off the boat at the first sign. Then they were gone. We waited and bobbed in the ocean, scanning
in all directions. They didn’t want to
show themselves to us. We motored
on. And on. And on.
By the time we spotted three large humpbacks and a calf
breaching from the ocean making dramatic splashes, the small armada of whale watching
boats were out to sea. There would be no
snorkeling with the whales today. If we
did jump in the water, the boat would be reported, and the captain given a
backbreaking ticket. We would have to
content ourselves watching these beautiful massive creatures play and lounge on
the surface. At one point the largest humpback
turned on his side and flapped his massive fin lazily making massive “thwacks!”
on the surface. It would have been a
real rush to have swum near something that huge, having it stare at me with his
enormous eye. I was disappointed but
only mildly so. It had been a good
adventure. The group on the boat shared
an easy comraderie. The sun shone
down. The sea lions barked. The pelicans circled. It was a nice day.
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