News

We are pleased each year to make post-season donations to organizations working to understand and conserve the remote areas and wildlife in Baja California. These are places we are honored to share with our passengers.

Pristine beach at Isla San Francisco. Cortez garden eels are found in the underwater sand flats just off the beach.

Laguna San Ignacio Ecosystem Science Program and Whale Shark Mexico in La Paz are our 2016 choices. Learn more about these hard-working researchers and consider donating to their projects (including gray whales and whale sharks), as we have done!

Click on the logos below to visit their web sites.

There’s exciting news about northbound gray whale cow/calf numbers, as counted by the researchers stationed  on California’s central coast. It’s interesting to note that some of the numbers have been recorded by drones this year.

“This could be the fifth springtime in a row that scientists will estimate that more than 1,000 pairs of gray whales will have swum past Point Piedras Blancas on their way to Alaska, according to marine biologist Wayne Perryman.”

Gray whale mother and calf in Laguna San Ignacio. Photo by Rob Nawojchik

Chef Charley Erichsen is the newest member of our Searcher family! This spring, he’s been the focus of many accolades, having already prepared over a hundred gourmet meals for our Searcher Natural History Tours passengers!  He is already hard at work building menus for next season and prepping his “kitchen with a view” aboard Searcher.

Charley was born in Wickenburg, Arizona, and he credits his mom’s amazing cooking skills to his early love and appreciation for good food.  “I have the best memories of just being in the kitchen, the great smells and flavors, and enjoying being in the one place in the house where everyone would come to hang out. One of my favorite family traditions is when my mom, her sisters and my grandma would get together at Christmastime and make handmade tamales and then distribute them among the whole family.”

After a knee injury derailed his college baseball scholarship, Charley pursued his “second love” and entered culinary school, graduating with a degree in French cuisine. He spent years cooking for restaurants on 5-star properties in Scottsdale and Aspen, honing his skills by working with Culinary Hall of Fame Executive Chef Scott Tompkins. Charley and his fiancé Dyana Hanouneh began to look west in search of the SoCal lifestyle they were craving. “I’m an outdoors person and I have open ocean experience, so when I saw Searcher was looking for a chef, I jumped. This job has everything I was looking for and more, not to mention the unique opportunity to run a scratch kitchen on a boat! Plus every seat in my restaurant has an ocean view!”

So what is Chef Charley “cooking up” as he preps for next season?  “I’m working on menus that highlight Baja French fusion, SoCal cuisine, and seasonal fresh produce.  Every dish has a background and it tells a story.”  When asked about his favorite fish to cook, he immediately replied, “Dorado. It’s like a blank canvas, and it accepts all flavors. It takes well to my fresh herb marinades.  It’s juicy and can be perfectly seared on the Searcher grill when treated right.”

Searcher adventurers, when you join us next season, you will enjoy Chef Charley’s signature BBQ sauce. It’s a recipe 10 years in the making! He describes it as Carolina-style: less sweet and more vinegar/tomato based.  “It complements pork unbelievably well. I serve it with corn, potato salad, red beans and rice. And dessert is banana bread with pecans and coconut Kahlua blondies.”

Fast Facts about Chef Charley:

• Baseball Position: Second Baseman
• Favorite Color: Green
• Met his fiance: At the 2011 MLB All-Star Game
• Top item on his Christmas list: Add to his collection of chef’s knives
• His “signature dish”: Seared porcini-dusted scallops with poached Bosc pears and a vanilla riesling butter
• Favorite Meal: Mussels in a white wine broth with grilled bread
• Favorite Drink: 7-up
• Favorite Spirit: Maker’s Mark
• Favorite Baseball Team: Arizona Diamondbacks
• Looking forward to next season: Seeing humpback whales breaching right outside my restaurant’s windows!
• Surprising Hobby: Dutch oven camp cooking (He’s made crown roast rack of lamb and quail with Southern Comfort cream sauce.)

“Charley, you’re a star! I have never had such tasty and varied meals cooked in such a small, rocky kitchen before!” – Ieuan B.

As we began our 2016 Searcher Natural History Tours Baja Whalewatching season, we proclaimed the following:
“Our hearts are full – and we want to share the Baja love!”

(Click here to see our “We Can’t Help Falling In Love” video)

We asked passengers to recall moments when they fell in love during one of our Searcher Natural History Tours.

Here’s what our Searcher friends replied:

Photo Credit: Michael Larsen

 

Seeing a newborn gray whale riding on its mother’s back in Laguna San Ignacio on my Searcher trip is a memory I hold dear to my heart always. -Ann Parker

I fell in love with the Searcher on the first evening as we left San Diego, watching the seals on the pontoons in the dark with the city lights behind. I knew then it was going to be the trip of a lifetime – then we hit the harbour bar and an exhilarating sea! We haven’t booked a holiday this year as nothing seems to match the Searcher and the wonderful Baja wildlife. -Linda Riseborough

Photo Credit: Chris Shields

Two years since my Searcher adventure and I still get a buzz thinking about it. I definitely fell in love with the ocean on that trip – its rhythms, colours and inhabitants will stay with me forever. I loved – literally – simply going with the flow. -Carol Morris

Photo Credit: Rob Nawojchik

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As we planned early (2010) for our 25 th Anniversary (April 11, 2012), we were targeting the Galapagos Islands for our special nature trip. But then I read a book called “Whales Touching the Mystery” by Doug Thomson. It is a fascinating book about San Ignacio Lagoon and the friendly gray whales (I’ve read it twice).

Larry and I have been fascinated with nature and in particular whales for a long time. We had observed whales in Cape Cod, Cabo and Puerto Vallarta. As I was reading the book, I kept asking myself if it was “for real”. How cool to be able to really interact with a gray whale. But who do I contact? So I went back to the first page of the Introduction where the author talked about his first encounter with a gray whale while travelling on a vessel called “The Searcher”.

The internet being a wonderful thing, I searched for “The Searcher” and lo and behold, I found “Searcher Natural History Tours”. I contacted Celia, who provided great information and answered all of our questions. From that point on, Galapagos was out the window and we were going to do a once in a lifetime trip in Baja for our 25th Anniversary to see the gray whales up close and personal!

I still remember my excitement going out in the pangas, especially when I touched the smooth back of my first young whale. It’s hard to express the feeling in words. I was so thrilled, the first thing I did back at the Searcher was give Captain Art a great BIG hug. As Art famously says, I didn’t just touch the whale, the whale touched me.

Larry’s dream was to see a big blue whale. We didn’t see just one – but 20 of them – including a baby blue that thought we were its nanny! This is just a small taste of the natural wonders experienced in the 12-day adventure. I’ve learned about birds (thanks, Paul Jones!), pinnipeds (thanks, Marc Webber!) and many species of whales and dolphins.

We enjoyed it so much that we went back in 2014 and we just returned from our 2016 trip. Words cannot begin to express the amazing trips that Captain Art, Celia and the Searcher crew provide.

Thank you for memories of a lifetime (times 3!).

– Sue (and Larry) Schott – Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

 

Did YOU fall in love during a Searcher Natural History Tour?  Tell us about it!

Email your “fell in love” story to searcher@bajawhale.com

🙂

 

Laguna San Ignacio gray whale census from 11 March: 135 cow/calf pairs and 7 singles (277 total). And from 16 March: 109 cow/calf pairs and 0 singles (218 total).

Thanks to Rob Nawojchik for use of his photos!

The census workers counted 29 single and 88 mother/calf pairs on 3 March in Laguna San Ignacio for a total of 205 gray whales!

(Photo by Rob Nawojchik)