Mexico · Baja California Sur · Sea of Cortez
Blue Whales off Loreto
He had guided whale watching tours here for years, and still called it “once in a lifetime”
The guide sees it before I do. He is already shouting and pointing behind us: a blue whale, breaching. I was still scanning ahead for the next exhale.
By the time I swing the camera around, I am already late. It is set for the wrong situation - slow shutter and low ISO - dialled in for a blow and a long arcing tail, not for freezing a whale suddenly breaching. That 'never' happens. My thumb finds the custom button I set for birds, one press that flips everything to action. I still miss the first jump by the width of a reflex. I get the second. Even then the frame lands a beat late. The whale is already past its own zenith before I catch up.
Then it turns on the speed and runs across the bay, breaching as it goes. Between breaches it drops under and we lose it - unsure exactly where it is going, or where and how it will come up next. We chase blind. It is genuinely fast, faster than something that size has any business being. The boat has to work to stay with it. I try to stand on a deck that will not hold still, 700 mm of lens shaking in front of my viewfinder. Years of windsurfing turn out to be the one transferable skill nobody warns you about. And since I used to swim, allow me to point out that by the time Michael Phelps once set his world record over 200 m butterfly - doing the best a man can do kicking like a dolphin - this blue whale would have been seen crossing the 1 km line already.
