Fear, Awe and Anticipation

Fear. That’s the only way to describe the emotion that quickly flashed through my mind when we spotted our first gray whale. We were flying over Laguna San Ignacio on approach to the camp and suddenly there it was. I only had a fleeting glimpse but it was vast. Unbelievably huge.

Scary. But then we spotted a baby. Again only the most fleeting of glances from high above the lagoon but suddenly the fear turned to awe. I don’t know what shifted the emotion, but there it was. Fear to awe in a millisecond. And then awe turned to incredible anticipation, anticipation that tomorrow we would go out on tiny little boats and try to interact with these awesome creatures.

But first a perfect landing on a strip of dirt marked by old tires. A short but bumpy ride in a van and then an exhilarating (and very wet) ride in a boat to our camp. A quick orientation around a low-impact facility (solar rules!), a quick but beautiful sunset and some chile rellenos, a chunk of cake in celebration of camp leader Jose Luis's birthday.

And then the stars. How does a city boy describe the indescribable vastness of the unpolluted night sky? I’ve only seen it once before, lying on the beach at Cape May Point in New Jersey many decades ago. We watched for hours then, fascinated by the endless sea of light.

This night I went to sleep under the same endless sea of light, wondering how we would actually find whales in the endless sea.

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I've just returned from a five-day trip to Mexico to visit the site of one of NRDC's greatest wildlife victories. Over the next week or so, I'll be writing about the journey. Tomorrow's entry (with photos and video) is called "The Friendlies."

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