Credit: Getty Images

I grew up camping, hiking, and swimming in the ocean. These days, I fly fish, I live with surfers, I consume nature films, and I snuggle all available pets with the passion one might expect from the daughter of a veterinarian. But my holy communion with nature did not happen until two years ago. I had to touch a gray whale to finally understand the sanctity of what we take for granted as an allegedly intelligent species.

Gray whales live in the shallow coastal water of the northern Pacific Ocean, in the Bering and Chukchi seas. But in October, they begin to leave those feeding grounds and head on a tremendous migration south to their mating and calving lagoons off the coast of Baja California, Mexico [1]. They travel about 12,000 miles, staying near the coast; the journey takes months. The whales remain in the temperate lagoons until the early spring, allowing the calves to build up a thick layer of blubber that will both sustain them during their lengthy northern migration and later keep them warm in the frigid Arctic seas.

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There are several ways to get to one of the three Baja California lagoons where gray whales breed, give birth, and nurse their calves. At some point, whether you fly to San Diego and drive south, land in Cabo San Lucas and drive north, or drop in on a tiny airstrip closer to your destination, you will bounce and rattle down dusty paths that lead to three remote and highly regulated expanses of water -- San Ignacio Lagoon, Magdalena Bay, or Laguna Ojo de Liebre -- where the whales spend several months a year.

My daughter's lifelong wish (all nine years of it, at that point) to see a whale took us to the tiny town of Guerrero Negro, where operators of Malarrimo Eco-Tours [5] would shuttle us to Laguna Ojo de Liebre -- more commonly known as Scammon's Lagoon -- a place named for a whaler where the objects of slaughter are protected by the government (at least for now).

The careful regulation of whale watching in the lagoons is deeply comforting; an opportunity to be where hundreds of mother whales feed and exercise their young while teaching them to dive, breathe, discover currents, and socialize with other whales, could be ruined by a process that creates havoc in what is, essentially, the day care center of an endangered species. Somehow, the fragility of the situation, as well as the recognition of eco-tourism as a saving grace for locals, inspires a reverence palpable in everyone involved.

Mammal-to-mammal contact.

Credit: Getty Images

It isn't just that the number of pangas, small skiffs that carry groups of 6-8 people into the lagoons, is kept to a minimum. The skippers are vigilant, well informed, and protective as they head into deep water and then cut their motors to sit and wait for the mammoth creatures to show. There is no feeding, tempting, or teasing to bring whales to the surface. Instead, the trip begins in almost complete silence as the panga heads out from a small dock and all eyes scan the horizon for signs of life.

The boats ride low, making it easy for one to lean over and touch the water, which is relatively calm in a salty lagoon. I felt small, sitting with a half dozen others in open water, contemplating the fact that 50-foot-long mammals weighing 40 tons apiece might happen by. And then they do. Gliding elegantly near the surface, about 50 yards from the boat, a massive mother whale, bearing white scars and covered in barnacles, appears flanked by a baby, probably about 15 feet long and darker than the adults.

The exhilaration in the moment is partly informed by a strange sense of familiarity. Even as fear is inflamed by the size and proximity of these behemoths, there is an instant longing to get closer, to make contact. The calf, born a couple of months ago and gaining 50 pounds a day, stays close to its mother, who dives, heads straight for the boat, goes under just beneath the hull, and surfaces close to the other side. When the mother comes around again, she glides alongside of the boat on her side, one eye focused on our faces as she passes.

It would have been enough to make eye contact with her. There is incomprehensible grace and magnanimity in this gesture, especially considering that hunters regularly infiltrated this same lagoon for years, harpooning the species to the brink of extinction from boats not so different from these in which we're floating. But this, we learned quickly, was just her introductory move. As she circled where we could see her, the mother allowed her calf to come to the side of the boat to be patted and stroked. Curious, enormous, and playful, the 1-ton baby lingered as it slid by, allowing contact and spraying a few lucky tourists with its blowhole. (I mean that sarcastically, as anyone who has been slimed by a spouting whale will attest.)

As the day went on, there were many more encounters; a young male didn't just come by for a pat or two but nudged the boat and showed off a bit before heading out. Mothers and calves were regular visitors, some of them known to the skippers, who admired the new offspring of females they had met in previous years.

Motoring back to the dock and busing back to town, we were -- nearly all of us -- quiet and reflective. Some experiences demand noisy review and the reassurance of fellow travelers that what just happened really happened. Our encounter with the whales was undeniably amazing and deeply personal, but it defies hasty blather. Instead, some of us cried, silently recollecting the gentility and trust of a species that has been on Earth for 30 million years, experiencing, at times, the worst of human nature.

And still, even as they have forgiven us the violence of the past, the gray whales might again be the victims of our recklessness: Their food is becoming scarce as Arctic ice recedes -- another victim of the climate crisis many labor to reverse.

Jennifer Foote Sweeney is a contributing editor for Edutopia.