MAKING CONTACT

Getting close enough to touch an animal usually isn't a great idea. But in a quiet lagoon on Mexico's Baja Peninsula, the whales are happy to oblige

- Sara Clemence

It’s a windy day in Laguna San Ignacio, and the waves seem to come from all directions—even directly beneath our open 18-foot fiberglass boat. Peaks rise up, slap against one another, roll us around, recede. My children gleefully ride the bucking bow, though we haven’t come to this remote part of Baja California for a joyride.

I scan the ruffled waters for a heart-shaped spray of water, the reason we’re here: the signature blow of a gray whale.

There. In the distance, a dark shape emerges from the lagoon, then slips back below the surface. The whale’s exhalation hangs briefly in the air.

“Help me splash!” our guide says, leaning over the gunwale. I stick my arm elbow-deep into the lagoon. This, apparently, is how you invite an animal the size of your living room to hang.

Two hulking shapes, a mother and her weeks-old calf, answer our aqueous call. The parent remains aloof. But the “little” one pokes its 5-foot-long, Muppet-like snout out of the water next to our bare-bones outboard fishing boat, or panga. The calf has a narrow face; its skin already has the pockmarks of a pickle, pale scratches, and patches of barnacles. It surfaces again and submerges. Then it’s right under me; I see its double blowhole pulse open and feel the vapor of its breath on my face.

The whale lolls onto its side like a 2-ton puppy, its mouth open in a smile-shaped gap. With the same impulse behind scratching a dog’s belly—but a little more hesitation—I reach out and gently stroke its beak. It feels electric. Also, a bit like petting a hard-boiled egg.