LA TIMES/GRAY WHALES/DICK RUSSELL/APRIL 12, 2005

Dear Wildcoast members:

We hope you enjoy this article by our good friend and supporter, Dick
Russell, author of the best book ever written on the gray whale, Eye of the
Whale. Serge

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LOS ANGELES TIMES

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The article can be viewed at:

LATIMES.COM

A quiet reconciliation with the whale

Tiptoeing through the giants' Baja nursery fosters awe and an improbable
bond.

DICK RUSSELL

April 12, 2005

The moment the rose-colored peaks of the Sierra Santa Clara mountains come
into view from the highway, I envision the phenomenon they embrace: the
sanctuary of the gray whales. It is the end of March, three years since my
last visit. This time, it is late in their birthing season, on the cusp of
their beginning the 5,000-mile-long migration back to the Arctic summer
feeding grounds. We are uncertain how many whales will remain; 37 miles of
bone-jarring, washboard dirt road yet stand between us and the lagoon.

Beyond flat-topped clay cliffs that overlook the desert forests of tall
cardon cactus and thick-trunked elephant trees, the shimmer of tidal salt
flats beckons entry into the realm of las amistosas — the friendly ones.

We arrive in two carloads at Campo Cortez, one of several whale-watching
camps along the lagoon. After lunch we start hiking with half a dozen other
visitors along a quarter-mile path that follows a pillow-lava rock jetty
leading to the lagoon. Beyond the pickleweed plants and sand verbena with
its magenta-colored flowers, Maldo Fischer and his son Paco wait just
offshore in two 26-foot-long metal pangas. A flock of black brant geese
soars overhead, as our guides drive the boats high enough onto the craggy
shore for us to climb aboard without getting wet.

A quarter of an hour passes before we round a small peninsula approaching
the mouth of the lagoon, where it empties into the Pacific. This 5-mile-wide
channel is the designated area for whale watching. (No visitors are allowed
in the nursery deeper inside the lagoon.) Mexican regulations permit only 15
pangas here at any one time; none are allowed to approach the whales. The
boats can only pause, engines in idle, while the choice of making contact is
up to the grays. We are told that, of the 800 or so who were here a month
ago, perhaps 100 mothers and their calves are still around.

As we enter the channel, the first visible whale sign is a "spy hop," a
vertical thrust jabbing skyward out of the depths, remaining stationary long
enough — or so one imagines — to assess our presence. Now a pair of whales
are spotted, lolling on the surface: the mother's barnacle-crusted forehead
glistening in the sun, the calf emitting a heart-shaped geyser from its twin
blowholes. The whales hold steady not far away, but make no move in our
direction. As the young one disappears underwater, the fluke waves at us.

It is impossible not to think this way, not to turn these grand creatures
into something familiar. Especially after you first meet. Their sudden rush
toward the panga takes your breath away. Alongside us now, a 30-ton mother
nudges her already 2-ton newborn toward a matchstick-craft that could
capsize in an instant. Yet the heart's pounding is not from apprehension;
no, rather from a sense of wonderment rarely experienced, and in Laguna San
Ignacio, that never grows old.

The mother bears a large white patch on her left side, near the knuckles
that ridge her back. Her marbled body, all spots and barnacles, indicates
she is an older whale. The baby lifts its head into the sauna-like spray
that cools the outboard engine, then accompanies mom from stern to bow and
back again, leaning into our touch, opening its mouth wide for a baleen
massage. Many times are we baptized with whale-spray. At last, two of our
passengers plant simultaneous kisses on the baby's rubbery nose.

Among our party is Phila Dunlap, at 85 certainly one of the oldest ever to
make this pilgrimage. Back at camp, sitting outside her tent, she tells my
wife: "I must sit here and wrap my mind around what I have been through."
Later, Phila would speak of having been around wild animals all her life, of
having "talked" to her horses. "But this really is like your pet dogs coming
to greet you — exuberance is the word!"

There is, too, a fragility here, a vulnerability you feel during a fitful
night's sleep, tossing on your cot as the wind batters the tent. Five years
ago, this last pristine habitat of the grays had been poised for the
development of a sprawling saltworks; the same saline buoyancy that makes
the lagoon ideal for giving birth is equally enticing to titans of industry.
A spirited campaign by Mexican and American environmental groups ultimately
scuttled the project, but recent talk of its revival brings realization that
vigilance — not victory — is all that can ever really be declared.

Dawn breaks to brown pelicans diving for prey. As we head out again, there
are a number of whale pairs lined up facing the lagoon's mouth, as if
holding a pre-migratory classroom. Their exhalations form wispy, whispering
rainbows across the aquamarine waters. For a long time, no visitations. Then
a baby whale finally surges through the waves, mother nowhere in sight. She
turns over to show us her creamy-white belly, one silver-gray eye riveted
upon us. She rises to be stroked and kissed, voraciously friendly, all but
leaping into the boat with us. The half-hour she lingers overturns time and
space.

There is more. Always more. A young whale cavorting with two bottlenosed
dolphins, rolling and leapfrogging over one another, a game that all appear
to enjoy. A huge acrobat balancing the calf on its back, "presenting her
child" until the nose is perched eye-level with ours.

Why they have chosen to approach human beings here with increasing
frequency over the last generation, no one knows. In the mid-1900s, whalers
had slaughtered their ancestors by the thousands in this same lagoon,
labeling them "devilfish" for their propensity to fight back by overturning
small boats.

The pangas that today propel us among them are the same size as those
whaleboats. Yet now the grays come beseeching the outstretched hands of
people whose forbears once thrust harpoons.

Their forgiveness, indeed their love, is surely one of the planet's
profound mysteries.

The mind grasps at straws of explanation. When the gray whales arch their
tails and vanish beneath the waves, it is as though they have disappeared
into my heart. Their all-penetrating gaze is what remains when I close my
eyes.

Dick Russell is the author of "Eye of the Whale."