Thar She Blows

Bode felt better the next morning, so we decided the best thing for a kid with a weak stomach is a 3 hour dirt road and then a boat ride. All this to see the California Grey Whales at San Ignacio Bay.

They said it would take 1.5-2 hours to get there. They didn’t mention the road conditions, so we headed out. We passed 2 guys that seemed broken down on the road, but both insisted ‘no problema.’ So we continued on.

About 5 miles to our destination, the right front shock came off. Jason bolted it back on backwards to hold until we got to Ecotourismo Kuyima. We walked out to the boat with a French couple and the captain.

We were happy to find that there are some pretty strict rules about tour boats here. Only a limited number of specially licensed boats are permitted here each season. We only saw 2 other boats the whole time and both of them headed back a few minutes after we got there.

Within 20 minutes we were seeing whales. Our captain (no English) navigated us onward and we found more and more whales. Ultimately, a few mother and babies came right up to our boat to check us out.

It was pretty amazing, and one of the highlights of the trip so far for both Jason and I. Bode seemed to think this was an everyday occurrence. That is one damn lucky 4 year old.

We took hundreds of photos, and a few movies. I’m not sure that whale photos are that interesting to others, but hopefully you can see how close they got to us, and how many there were.

The ride home was the least fun part of the day. Within minutes, both front shocks came off and there wasn’t much we could do this time. Jason removed them and we rode 3 hours back without shocks on the front of the car. This has cured us of wanting to do any off-roading for the near future.

We rewarded ourselves with some mighty fine street tacos when we got back to San Ignacio.

Jason was able to McGyver the shocks with a knife and some giant washers the next day, so Red Beard is riding semi-smooth again.