Â§hria's Spot

I'm back

Yes, I made it back alive from the bowels of hell, pretty much alive anyway.

There were some very high points and some very low points with the Mexico trip.

I've decided to break up the journaling of the trip into several entries so I can post more pictures.

Let's start today with the highest point.

Three humpback whales.

Unfortunately I haven't got any of my own pictures of them to share with you because they dove beneath the blue-green sea before I could get a shot. Okay, I was struck motionless with the absolute awesome size and beauty of them. I couldn't have moved to get my camera let alone drawn a breath when I saw them break the surface. I did manage to find a few pictures pretty close to what I saw, though.

The first was far out from the bay of Cuastecomate and it was shortly after sunrise so far away that I could barely make out the silhouette of its tail on the horizon in the distance. Then suddenly the whole animal erupted from the water higher into the air and unmistakably a humpback whale.

The 20 HP Johnson outboard motor couldn't move the 17 foot aluminum boat very fast and we didn't get close to this one before it disappeared. As we motored out to sea we saw the whale breach a couple more times.

Later in our fishing trip we saw a humpback whale, or rather its tail, a few times in the bay at La Manzanilla. It seemed like the whale was playing with us. It would arch across the surface almost soundlessly, slipping beneath the waves before whomever saw it could point it out. First about 300 meters to the sea side of the boat, then about 400 metres behind us, then again somewhere around 200 metres to the front shore side of the boat. In total we spotted it at least six times in about an hour.

Once, I had a fish on my line and it was putting up a very good fight. Suddenly there was a really sharp tug on the line, sharp enough to nearly haul me out of the boat but short enough to give me time to recover before I got really wet. Then the line went totally slack. I thought it was another Dorado playing dead on me so I would give up and give him slack to break free so I kept reeling in the line. It came up with the lure intact and a little piece of a fish lip on it. Fred said that was weird and threw it back in the water for me to set.

I asked him if humpback whales eat dorados and he thought they may, since some of the younger dorado are about the right size. Not wanting to get caught by a whale while fishing for dorado, I snapped the safety belt on and checked to be sure it was secured to the boat before resetting my line.

Moments later the same line was hit by another fish and started spinning out. I wrestled it out of the holder just as Gerry and Fred started to holler and point behind me. I turned just in time to see the tails of two whales about 100 metres to the sea-side bow of our boat wave good-bye before they dove into the depths, not to surface near us again.

The fishing rod that I was barely holding on to suddenly stopped clicking and the lure started to sink. That was when I realized how quiet it was. Fred had cut the motor and lifted it out of the water. We gently drifted in the wake of the disappeared whales for a few minutes before Fred dropped the motor in the water and we wordlessly went back to setting the lines.

When we got back to shore and told everyone gathered there to greet us what we caught, the Mexican chef agreed with Nova who told me to fish when I am fishing and never mind the whales. Fred and Gerry laughed hard, telling them its pretty hard to do that.