Unforgettable Whale Watching Experience in Baja California, Mexico

She's like literally right under. If she were to lift her head right now, we would go flying. Hi, we're Mel and Jay. Together with our cat Benny, we're traveling the Baja Peninsula all the way to Cabo and back. This is the story of our time in San Ignacio, where we visit with whales, explore the town, and get adopted by a pair of dogs. We are on the road again. We've got a lot of chores to do today. We've got to dump tanks, get water, get propane, get grocery, refuel, and resupply. No one's coming. We're good. This is one of the nice things I like about driving here is like there's like no cars. All right, we have made it to stop numero uno for today and that is the dumping station. And we have to say a quick thank you to Wildlife RV on Instagram. They posted on their stories recently about this dumping station because they stayed on this beach and we are very happy that they did because we did not know about it and now we can actually empty our tanks before the long drive to San Ignacio today. So that is fantastic. This, let me just give you an idea of what a dumping station in Baja typically has been looking like. And it's a hole in the ground and we just empty in. Works for us. So that's stop number one. Then we will be continuing on to stop number two as soon as we are done this. Bye Conception Bay. It was wonderful. Bye. Stop number two, getting some gas. And we've heard that the next station along our route may not have gas all the time. So just for good measure, we're going to fill up some jerry cans. We are back in our favorite skinny road town of Santa Rosalia with the bakery. And stop number three was a success. Look at all these delicious looking goodies. Jay made a stop in the bakery and the bank. We are ready and we are getting a lot of odd looks. Not a ton of road space but we're making it. Like a pro. Like a pro. No problem. And it turns out we are not the only ones doing this. On the road again. Made it to stop number four. Looking for someone. Hopefully he'll find someone to help him out. They always show up. All right we made it to stops number five and six. That's right we've got a two-in-one. We needed water and groceries and this little store provides us with both. Got the little setup going. Tell you it was our friend Doug that told us about this. A little siphon pump works great. It's perfect. Looks like Mel's got our groceries. Did you get most of what we needed? Yes but they were all out of avocados. Oh no. And no bananas. Oh man my two favorite things. That's pretty much everything else though. I just completed the final stop at the tortilleria. We bought a kilo of tortillas. We've kind of become tortilla snobs on this trip and we prefer the fresh tortillas that are made every day at the local tortillarias and they just they taste different. They're that much better. I think that wraps up all the errands. It's now quarter after three and we have to get all the way down to the San Ignacio lagoon where we are camping tonight. So half of that road is going to be washboard too. So we'll see how long it takes us. We've got 65 kilometers to go. So far the road has been fantastic. Perfectly paved. The last 17 kilometers a little rougher. We're having flashbacks to going into Los Frelos. Really bumpy. You know we were really debating whether we wanted to go down that gravel road bumpy for like a half hour and I mean it was pretty bad but I want to say it was worth it. We're right on the lagoon. I've seen a couple whale puffs already. This is just a beautiful looking campground. I think we're really gonna like it here. Let me give you a little tour of camp. We are parked right on a cliff side to the ocean. Our campsite is lined beautifully with all kinds of shells. It's pretty wide open space which we love for our solar. We are in the desert so resources are quite limited around here. They have showers though and bathrooms but the difference is that the water for the shower is heated with a solar panel. Isn't that cool? So you take some water that's been heated into a bucket and then some cold water into a bucket to mix them and then you kind of just dump it over you and then you're allowed one bucket per person for your shower. That is some serious, serious water conservation. And then for the bathrooms, the toilets, it's a it's like a foot flush toilet. I'm not necessarily going to go in there and show you but it's a foot flush toilet. You add a cup of water, you do your business and then you foot flush which we're really used to in the trailer so it's just like you know being at home. The other option actually on that note, if you don't have a rig you can still come here and they have tents. And on our way to that they also have a restaurant. You can get free coffee and tea in the morning, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eight till eight were the hours and we just are really excited to be here because well we're here to see the whales. So here are the tents and you can see they've also got bathrooms and showers at this end as well. I love how accessible this is for everyone like you don't have to have your own trailer or motorhome or something. Making friends here, that's our camp tour for now. Now what we have in store for today as you might be able to tell from the many layers that I'm wearing here is that it's a bit cold and I'm dressed for some colder weather. That is because we are going whale watching. Today we are going to see gray whales and apparently they like to get a little up close and personal with people. So let's go see what they've got in store for us. Okay well this is one of the strangest outfits I've probably ever worn. Let me explain why. I'm wearing two layers of pants. I've got leggings and jeans. Then I have a long sleeve shirt, a wool sweater, my puffer vest and my raincoat. Now they recommended for this whale watching tour that if you have waterproof pants to consider bringing those. We often travel with our full rain gear and this trip we just thought you know what we're going to the desert it's not going to rain. Not much anyways. We don't need it and well that was a mistake made. I'm wearing water shoes with all of this because there is a chance that we will have to walk in the water to the boat and I'm really really crossing my fingers and hoping that's not the case because if my feet get cold this is not going to be a good situation. Let me show you what else we are bringing with us to be prepared to meet the whales. Cameras of course and those are in our dry bag. We're bringing little towels. We were told the whales get close enough that when they blow you might get that in your face so you might want a towel. And then on top of that we brought some water and we brought our binoculars. I don't think we're gonna need those. So yes we've got cameras that can go underwater. We're hoping to be able to stick our hands in the water. If you have been to see the gray whales and we've forgotten something that you think is really important let us know in the comments so that other people who might be watching this video can read in the comments and see maybe some other things that they might want to consider bringing too. Anyways let's all share. Let's go. Sporting our sexy life jackets again. Seeing whales and dolphins everywhere. I just saw like four whales splashing and jumping over here. Oh wow. Nice. Oh my gosh. Wow. Oh look at her eyes. Huge. Just so pretty. Come here. Come here. Oh she's back. She's gonna breathe on you again. Wow he says. Wow. Oh look at her big eye. We're being followed by a whale. And I'm gonna get a nose. I just can't believe that she like wants to follow us and interact with us. Like we are actually moving away from her but she's just keeps on coming. Yeah. This whale is literally chasing us at a pretty decent cliff. So many barnacles. Oh my gosh. Wow. Oh there's her eye. There's her eye. Beautiful. She just keeps coming back. And pushing the boat too. We are the scratching post for the whale. She's like literally right under. If she were to lift her head right now we would go flying. So the eastern gray whales they migrate from Alaska all the way down to Baja where they breed and raise their young and prepare their young for the big migration back to Alaska. It is in Baja where there are three protected bays where you can go and see them. It is illegal to get into the water with them. It is illegal to go out on your own to see them. No kayaking. No stand-up paddleboards. No parasailing over them. No flying over them. In fact the Mexican government even goes as far as to limit the number of small boats into very specific areas. The law states that organized licensed tours can enter these areas. They have to be a minimum of 200 feet away from the whales. However for some unknown reason some of the whales are quite friendly and interested in the boats and people and we got super lucky to see one of them. She came right up to the boat rubbed her face, rubbed her like mouth area on the boat, pushed the boat around a little bit and even like rolled over and exposed her belly to us. Like that just is unreal to me. Yeah and I just couldn't believe this one whale that kept literally following the boat and she just wouldn't let us leave. In fact at one point she even got in front of the boat to stop us and eventually he started going backwards. Yes. He had to back away from the whale to try and to try and leave it and it still kept following. It was just it was unbelievable. Yeah. So overall this was just an amazing experience and very very memorable. Not something we'll forget anytime soon. No. We have come about an hour and a half north back to the town of San Ignacio and we're in a nice little RV park here called El Padrino. So one of the reasons we chose this campground is because it's only a seven minute walk into town. Yeah and we like to be able to be close to what we're going to because last year we spent a lot of time parked in one spot but then doing day trips and we burned a lot of gas doing that so this year we've learned our lesson and we're doing small short little hops to the next spot and then exploring as much as we can on foot. And then this way we get our exercise too. I think that's the sidewalk. I think you're right. Yeah let's cross. It's a bit of a narrow sidewalk. Just a sidewalk at all is kind of a bonus here. Just watch approaching him. Oh he's so pretty. I wonder what kind of horse this is. Hello. You're getting pretty high up. Yeah that's as far as I want to go actually. I'm coming down. Starting to sweat. This feels a little squirrely now. I'm going to stay very close to the inside. This is really high up. All right I'm coming down very carefully. All right we just had a little stop at the Mercado. Picked up some Snacko. Now we gotta go back to the trailer. And that's the town of San Ignacio so you don't need a ton of time here. Probably you know a couple hours. Yeah it could be done in an afternoon. Yeah. Oh are those dates up there? Yeah they're all date palms. Look you can see them especially on this tree here. There's tons of them. And now we're back to the El Padrino campground. All right let's see our haul from town. Salsa Verde flavored Tostitos. Cheesies but they're chili flavored. Some avocados. Jay got a t-shirt for the place where we stayed to go and see the whales. And we got a magnet. The rough thing about traveling on rough roads is they often shake apart your rig. This burner here came off on our journey from the San Ignacio lagoon. Luckily I've fixed it before so I know what to do. All I have to do is unscrew that, re-screw that, and put it back on. And that's that. Good as new. Buenas tardes or good afternoon. Let's do a camp tour. This is the second campground on this stay. It comes with its very own cute welcoming committee. Yes and there are two of them and they have not left our side. It's fairly simple. You pull in. You can pick between one of approximately 10 different sites. They do have some water hookups available or at least to be able to fill your tank. There's a spot where you can empty your tanks. They have hot showers. They have bathrooms of course. And um that's kind of it. Oh actually that's not it. There's a restaurant on site as well and the best part is it's a seven minute walk from town. I also love how peaceful this place is during the day. There's birds chirping. The dogs of course come by to hang out. All these palm trees here beside me are date palms and that is what I would recommend you check out in this town. You can buy dates in several of the shops and cafes as well as various baked goods made with dates and they're quite tasty. Well this concludes our time here in San Ignacio and I think the hardest part actually is leaving these two dogs who have adopted us. Yeah they've been with us almost the whole time here. They kind of showed up as we pulled in. They went into town with us. We kind of took semi-responsibility of them and now we have to say goodbye to them which is super sad. But we've had a great time and I'm sure they will adopt some new campers. In fact we think they already have. Anyways next week we're going to be coming to you from Guerrero Negro where we're going to see some more whales hopefully. But some other stuff too. So we'll see you then. See you then. Bye. I'm sure we'll find many other things to share with you in the b-roll over top of everything I've just said. Isn't there a cow right behind that horse? Those are all horses. Make sure you don't miss the next video by liking, subscribing and turning on notifications. Oh and don't forget to check out our website and sign up for our weekly email blast. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you in the next one.