Whale watching in Cabo San Lucas this past January 2017 was highlighted by the return of the Gray Whales! This is very exciting for all of us at Whale Watch Cabo as last season the Gray Whales were largely absent from the Cabo San Lucas area. This is the whale watching tours report for January 2017 in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

While the species we most commonly encounter on our whale watching tours is the Humpback Whale, in most years the Gray Whales have been a close second in frequency of sightings. Last year there was a very strong weather phenomenon called ‘El Nino’ which causes unusually warm ocean temperatures. The result last season was the Gray Whales being very scarce in Cabo San Lucas.

We are thrilled to be seeing many Gray Whales on most tours and we expect this to continue. Cabo San Lucas is a wonderful location for whale watching as we can often encounter 2 species of large baleen whales on a single tour.

Don’t forget – to encounter the Mother and Baby Gray Whales you will have to travel to the birthing lagoons north of Cabo San Lucas. We arrange day whale watching trips by small charter plane up to the Magdalena Bay area (Adolfo Lopez Mateos) where encountering numerous Gray Whale Mother and Baby Gray Whale pairs is common.

In January we had a 100% sightings record for Humpback Whales on all of the tours, while losing only a couple of days to poor weather.

What else did we see in January? There were more baby Humpback Whales observed – we LOVE baby Humpback Whales. Not only are they often very active and thrilling to observe, but they are proof positive of the recovery of the Eastern North Pacific Humpback Whale population.

We had a couple of days with Orcas in the area. We are absolutely amazed to observe the Orcas when they arrive in Cabo San Lucas. As the apex predator in the ocean, the Orcas are not only beautiful and strong but intelligent and often curious of our boat.

As usual there were Bottlenose Dolphins encountered on over half of our whale watching tours, plus the ever present Olive Ridley Sea Turtles lounging on the surface on most tours. We also encountered both Long Beak and Short Beaked Common Dolphins. We expect to see many more Common Dolphins and in large pods in late February and well into March.

We also observed Rough-toothed Dolphins and Pantropical Spotted Dolphins – but they were transiting through Cabo San Lucas – so only a lucky few were able to encounter these species.

This brings the total number of cetacean species (Whales and Dolphins) encountered on our Cabo San Lucas whale watching tours in January to 8! There are not many places in the world that host so many amazing species of whales and dolphins.

Thank you to all of our wonderful guests who joined us to responsibly encounter the Whales and Dolphins here in Cabo San Lucas this January 2017! We really appreciate your choice to join our little dedicated Whale Watching Company 🙂

So that is the January 2017 Cabo San Lucas Whale Watching Tours report – what will we see in February? We expect to daily encounter Humpback Whales, Gray Whales and Bottlenose Dolphins. There will likely be more baby Humpback Whales and as they mature, more active baby Humpback Whales as well! When you add that to all the other wonderful marine species we often see on our tours we are very excited to see what February 2017 will bring to whale watching tours in Cabo San Lucas! Hope to see you then for some amazing adventures with Whales!