Whale strike

By Nicole

“Aaron! We just hit something!”

But he didn’t need me to tell him – he felt it too, and dashed up the companionway steps to join me in the cockpit.

We were a day into our two-day passage from Bahia Tortugas to Bahia Santa Maria off the southern coast of Baja, out of sight of land and in over 500’ of water, when we heard a loud BAM! and felt the boat shudder as it rode up and over something.  Oh no.

Aaron was washing lunch dishes in the galley, while I was zoning out at the waves and keeping an eye peeled for sea critters.  A small whale (a Minke, we think) had been following us for a number of miles, just milling around.  We’d watch him occasionally surface a few feet from the boat, and at one point he was so close that I had to wipe whale spray off my glasses.

With Aaron now up in the cockpit and our adrenaline pumping, we quickly surmised that we’d struck the tag-along whale.  We scanned the water for any sign of the whale or its injuries, but, fortunately, all we saw were the blue waves rolling by.  A swift check confirmed that weren’t taking on water, so our thoughts turned to the steering system.  Did the whale damage the rudder?  Bend the rudder shaft?  Would be be able to steer?

Our hearts were still racing as we turned a full 360° circle to port and then back to starboard without any trouble.  Aaron grabbed the flashlight and dove into the lazarette (the area under the cockpit) to inspect the rudder post for signs of damage.  Fortunately, it looked fine too.

It was then that we noticed the whale was back.  Was it injured?  Curious?  Playing?  Pissed?  Whales have been known to sink boats, and in fact, a boat sunk off Baja a few years back after striking a whale.  Our assumption was that we collided with the whale on accident – perhaps while it was dinking around under the boat, it moved up as we came off a wave and moved down.  But how were we to know for sure?

Aaron immediately hailed our friends on Estrellita who were making the same passage, although they were about 15-20 miles west of us.  We thought everything was okay, but we wanted someone to know our position just in case.  Estrellita offered to adjust their course to intercept us, and they did just that two hours later. 

Boy, were we happy to see them come over the horizon.

Thanks for changing course for us, guys! 

Estrellita running downwind, hiding behind a wave

After our nerves calmed down a bit, Aaron said that we were actually lucky.  “Not very many people can say they’ve hit a whale.”  I told him to go buy us a lottery ticket.