Whale Tales Part I: Ballena Valentina

This has been a Valentine's Day to remember, and I don't think the Humpback whale we named "Valentina" will forget this day either.

Today was our first day out on water with our friends Heather and Michael Fishbach, and their son, Gaelan. We are staying with them in the town of Loreto in Baja, Mexico, and partaking in a week-long whale tour that they host out in the Sea of Cortez. Today was a beautiful day; the perfect day to be on the water. The sun was shining, the water was like glass, and we had already seen several whales when Michael spotted something that looked like a log floating out in the water. This seemed strange since we are in the middle of the desert and there's not a tree in sight, so we drove closer to investigate. We soon realized that it was a humpback whale trapped in a fishing net.


We first thought that it was dead because it was not moving, but after a few long moments it took a breath, and we knew that we had to try and save this whale's life.

Michael radioed for backup, and proceeded to get into the frigid water with a snorkel and George's pocketknife (the only knife on the boat - go Boy Scout training!)

From that vantage point, Michael was able to assess the severity of the entanglement better, and he determined that the situation was very grim. The whale's pectoral fins were pinned to her side, her dorsal fin was cut from the net, and her tail was also entangled; thus she was barely able to stay afloat and breathe.

He tried to communicate that he was there to help, but she was very distressed and fully immobilized. Michael was able to successfully cut the net off her dorsal fin, which allowed the whale a little more movement.

The whale's improved movement enabled her to come closer to our boat, and at one point she lifted the boat a few inches as she took a breath right under us. George and Alberto (our wonderful boat-driver) grabbed the net from the whale's back and started pulling and cutting it off her. Thus pulling and cutting went on for about 30 minutes, and as the whale was gainging more freedom, she was able to swim better and dive deeper. When she would surface for a breath, "Slasher George" would quickly slash the net while Michael and Alberto pulled it. After taking a breath, the whale would attempt to div, and the guys held onto the net with all their strength. We were pulled on a true "Nantucket Sleigh Ride", but this time we were trying to save a whale rather than kill one.


Finally, the last of the net was cut away, and "Valentina" swam free. Click here to see the 4 minute video of the "final cut". Our heroic efforts were rewarded with an unbelievable display of full-body breaching.



After about a half-hour of breaching, she started to writhe and roll around on the surface of the water, flapping her huge pectoral fins in the air and slapping them on the surface of the water.


After awhile, we decided to leave her in peace and started to drive away; but then she started "tail lobbing", and we quickly returned to watch the next act. She would raise her fluke (tail) high above the water and repeatedly splash the water with powerful strength. She would do this in a belly-down position and then spin around and repeat her tail lobbing while in a belly-up position. In this short video, her back is toward the surface.


Now she is tail-lobbing while belly-up.




This part of the show was most curious to me, and I'm not sure exactly why she was doing it. I can only take her actions to be ones of joy and freedom. I think little Gaelan described it best when he said, "I know what she's doing! She's showing us how happy she is to be free!"

It was an incredible and unforgettable experience, one that I will treasure in my memories. It is also deeply disturbing to think about how many nets are lurking in our seas and oceans, killing innumerable whales and other marine mammals and sea-creatures who are not the targets for our dinner plates. It's enough to make any seafood lover want to sacrifice her taste-buds for the good of the sea, which is an especially hard thing to do in the land of fish tacos.

The net that entangled "Valentina" was actually a shark net, illegally placed in the National Marine Park which "protects" the sea around Loreto. It measured 12 x 200 feet. It lacerated the skin on her tail and removed a chunk of her dorsal fin. She will be scarred for life, but she is among the lucky few of her kind that have escaped the full wrath of our nets. I wish her many more safe and successful trips to Alaska and back!

Thanks to Michael Fishbach for sharing his photos and tail-lobbing videos!

Going Bananas!

For a few years now, George and I have hosted a "Local Foods Feast" in early February as part of "Cabin Fever University", a calendar of various social events that take place throughout the winter in Celo. George, especially, is passionate about local food, and loves nothing better than to sit down at the table and appreciate a delicious, home-grown meal. This potluck event, purposely timed in the heart of winter, is a great creative experiment to see what kinds of local foods (grown in our valley) are still holding strong in peoples' root-cellars, green-houses, and cold-frames. There are always the hardy standbys (potatoes and winter squash), but there are always some exotic surprises that show up on the table, such as fresh cheeses, custard, preserved fruit treats, maple syrup, and local meat (wild or domestic). One year, a friend brought fresh lemonade made from lemons off her potted plant and her bees' honey. It's always a delicious event!

The first "Local Foods Feast" we hosted fell on Groundhog's Day, which I thought was appropriate; so when I realized that today is Groundhog's Day, I decided to do some documentation on my favorite subject: food. I thought it would be a good opportunity to see what local foods we're enjoying here. Please don't hate me!

First of all, the inspiration for this post: Bananas. When we moved into this house nearly 3 months ago, there was a small banana tree in our backyard with a lovely bunch of small, green bananas developing beautifully from their dramatic curved stem. If you have never seen a banana tree in flower, like I had not, let me show you a close-up photo of a banana flower. Unfolding from under every magenta "petal" of this banana "flower", are a row of chartreuse baby bananas that flower from their ends. Amazingly beautiful, I think.

The bunch of bananas in our yard was more developed than this flower when we moved in, and I would eagerly check on "my babies" often. The top layer of bananas started yellowing earlier this week, and after I saw the Costa Rican equivalent of a robin dining on one of them, I took that as a sign that they were ripe and ready to harvest.

We harvested the bounty and gave thanks to the Banana God, and now this huge bunch of bananas sits in my kitchen.

I have always been a banana fan, but I am used to grocery store bananas, and these bananas were still a bit on the green side for my visual concept of a "ripe banana", so I planned to let them ripen for another day or 2. Later in the day however, I noticed a small dinosaur-like shape sneaking it's way across the kitchen floor, toward the bananas. I grabbed by camera, always on the ready for unusual animal encounters, and snuck into the kitchen to capture the kodak moment. The iguana saw me, however, and ran it's fastest (which is not very fast when it's trying to run on tiled floors - in fact it's more cartoon-like and quite hilarious) away from me and into one of the bedrooms.


Eventually, George was able to capture the hungry iguana and take it outside. George held it, and we admired it for awhile.


I felt bad for hogging all the bananas, so I peeled a couple and put them out on our bird / iguana feeder in the yard. In so doing, I realized that these greenish bananas were perfectly ripe (as the robin and iguana already knew), and when I say "perfectly ripe", that's just what I mean. I have never had so sweet a banana! The taste is almost unrecognizable from a grocery store banana!

Needless to say, I have been eating bananas every day and sharing them with others (human and animal alike). Today I added one to my breakfast of other local foods: mangoes, papaya, and yogurt I made from some local milk. It was so beautiful I had to take a picture! Even the accompanying coffee (made with the same local milk and Costa Rican grown and processed sugar) was grown just over the mountain.

There is a bountiful amount of local food to choose from down here. Besides our banana tree, we had a pineapple growing in our yard, as well as a cinnamon tree. Our neighbors have an orange tree, a huge mango tree with baby mangoes on it, and a coconut palm that regularly drops its ripened fruit.

There are even cocoa trees bearing fruit right down the road! The shiny whitish pod hanging from the tree in the middle of the photo is a developing cocoa pod. Chocolate trees!

Every Saturday, I go to our local farmer's market where they have local fruits and veggies, honey, spices, eggs, chicken, and fish.


We've been making delicious salads made exclusively from locally grown food. Even the fresh pepper, and the coconut oil and mandarina limes used to dress the salad are local.

The tortillas and black beans in this scrumptious quesadilla are "imported", but every other ingredient is local, including the cheese which was made north of here in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Too beautiful to be excluded from the photo-food-documentary, I thought.

So Happy Groundhog's Day to everyone! I hope that (whether or not your neighborhood groundhog saw it's shadow) the rest of the winter brings joy and good food to each of your tables. And by the way, according to the shadow of the iguana that is currently eating bananas off of my "bird feeder", it looks like Costa Rica's definitely going to have 6 more weeks of summer, even though the children go back to school this week after their summer vacation.

Buen Provecho!

Feliz Cumpleanos Cecelia!

We just spent a wonderful week with my mom and niece, Cecelia, who celebrated her 12th birthday with us. Adalaya was especially ecstatic to have Cecelia visit since she's been deprived of hanging out with girls her age who speak English for way too long. Conveniently, Cecelia is also fluent in Spanish and helped us many times with our broken Spanish and aided in translation. During their visit we had many adventures, but the best day (according to the girls) was Cecelia's birthday. First, we went to Dominical, a touristy surfing town about 30 minutes away. There we watched some surfers and supported the beach-front vendors; we needed to get birthday presents for Cecelia, after all (and the rest of us found some presents for ourselves as well).


George volunteered to hold down the hammock while we shopped.

Then we got lunch at a good gringo restaurant, Tortilla Flats.

After lunch, we headed to our final destination for the next couple of days, Hacienda Baru, a wildlife refuge and resort just north of Dominical. We rented a little cabin for 2 nights, and within walking distance there was an orchid garden, butterfly garden, restaurant, swimming pool, beach, lots of hiking trails, a bird-watching tower, and (the girls' favorite thing) a canopy zipline.

We did the zipline tour that afternoon, which started out with a guided hike from a hilarious guide named Carlos, who found pleasure in torturing little girls, especially birthday girls. He caught an anole lizard (who played dead), and the girls each reluctantly held the "dead" lizard, until Carlos woke it up when it was in Adalaya's hand.


We also spotted a lone male pizote along the trail. These animals, also called coatis, were everywhere around Hacienda Baru.

We also saw several sloths in the treetops. One was actually awake and we were able to watch it move at it's "top speed" (slow and methodical) up one tree and into the branches of another tree.

But the most exciting part of the tour was the zipline, which consisted of 8 cables through the rainforest canopy. Here's the birthday girl getting hooked into the first cable.

And she's off!

Here goes George of the Jungle!

Adalaya's a little nervous at first,

but she does great, except when Carlos makes the cable bounce!

Here comes Lala!

Looks like she's enjoying herself.

Watch out, here I come!

Here we are in a huge tree near the top of the canopy, about 300 feet or so above the ground, about to go for another ride.

Carlos declared that every birthday girl must have bunny ears!

For the last of the 8 cables, Carlos sent us backwards, but not without a little bit of torturing the girls first.


For dinner, we ate under the palm thatched huts across from our cabin.

Then we headed back to our bungalow for BIRTHDAY CAKE!
Feliz Cumpleanos Cecelia!


It was a great day, and I think everyone had a great week. We got to explore this huge Chilemate tree with it's massive buttressed root system.


George found more time to lay around in the hammock between heated games of gin with Lala.

And the girls had some good swimming time.

When Lala and Cece left, however, they took Adalaya with them because she couldn't bear the thought of traveling for 2 more months with her parents. I reluctantly let her go, knowing that she needs time with her friends in familiar territory. I hated to say goodbye, though, and for the first time on this trip I am feeling homesick now that my girl is back in North Carolina without me! I can't believe I let her go!

But she's having a great time, and it's giving George and me some much needed time to ourselves.