Puerto Vallarta-based Vallarta Adventures lets clients spot whales and their babies
Puerto Vallarta-based Vallarta Adventures says the large water body it operates in serves as an aquatic maternity ward for much of the year.
The company has whale-watching excursions in the Bay of Banderas from early December through March, a time when mighty humpback whales gather in the bay, arriving from cooler waters, with females then giving birth.
And Vallarta Adventures guide Noe Rojas Gomez’s description of new additions to the humpback family as “very, very tiny” may raise eyebrows, given the baby cetaceans weigh in at 800 or more kilograms, although that’s just a fraction of what their parents weigh. The newest additions to the humpback family stay with their mothers for one to 1.5 years and then part ways.
The affable Rojas Gomez – who can conduct tours in English and Spanish – is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to humpbacks, reporting that their newly born don’t initially have enough fat for cooler northern waters, prompting the annual humpback migration to warmer climes. Some make the journey to the Puerto Vallarta area from such distant countries as Japan and Russia.
A recent tour led by Rojas Gomez saw many sightings of humpbacks, with Rojas Gomez reporting the massive mammals are comfortable around the boats found in the bay.
Rojas Gomez also will lower a mic into the bay during his tours, hoping clients can hear the whales engage in some underwater communication, or as he phrased it, “Maybe we will hear them sing.”
Banderas Bay is home to other aquatic creatures, including dolphins, the occasional orca and rays, with rays frequently leaping entirely from the water, and then re-entering it with a hard, slapping sound that one recent Vallarta Adventures client compared to that created by people doing belly flops.
Meanwhile, Rojas Gomez told those on a mid-March whale-watching excursion that it was seeing success, noting there were numerous sightings of marine life but one water dweller remained elusive.
“We found whales, we found dolphins, now let’s search for a mermaid,” he joked.
