Day 6 Guerrero Negro, Scammon's Lagoon, and salt mine.

Day 6 Guerrero Negro, Scammon's Lagoon, and salt mine.

Today was our second day of whale watching.  Things started off slow in high seas, but after about an hour we started seeing more and more.

Here you can see an eye and the mouth of the baby

We had another mother and baby around our boat and 5 people today were able to touch a whale  Although I dang near fell in trying, I got close, but no touch today.!!

 However, I did get a shower from a whale exhaling just as I was trying to touch him.  He got me right in the face and I was soaked!!  Check out these blow holes she got me with:

John caught a little bit of a rainbow through the mist of a whale blow:

Same lunch as yesterday.  I got a picture of it this time:

After whale watching, our captain took us for a little tour of the lagoon.   He took us to a buoy that had about 10 sea lions on it.  It was pretty high off the water and we were all wondering how they got up there!

After whale watching, we took at tour of the salt harvesting plant that is at the same site.  It was a pretty interesting tour.  The first stop was the mountain of salt.   The first thing we did was fill up baggies of sea salt to take home.  This is not for eating, but will be a great exfoliate once mixed with oil. 

There was an amazing Osprey nest right next to this mountain of salt.  These birds have been working on the same nest for years the guide said.  You can just the babies in each picture if you look close.

Then it was off to the salt washing area.  They wash the salt with sea water so they do not lose any of their produce through dissolving.

 One of the workers gave me a big chunk of salt crystal that I'm taking home to the grandkids.

The washed salt is sorted to remove large pieces:

Once the salt is washed, it is moved through conveyor belts to the bagging area.  Each bag holds a metric ton of salt.

You can just see the bags in the background of this picture (right side above red structure)

Working backwards a little bit, they next took us to an area where they were harvesting the salt.

Ready to harvest:

A truck is fitted with a grader, and plows the salt into long rows.  It looks like he is plowing snow, but it is salt!!

Then another machine comes along to suck up the salt and move it into the truck via conveyor belt.  Each truck can be filled in two minutes time.   It take about three days to harvest all the salt in this pond.

 The tires on the trucks cost $10,000 each, and last only six months.  They have to do constant maintenance on the machinery and trucks due to the corrosive nature of the salt.  They repaint the vehicles every six months also.

Once back at the campground, those of us that touched a whale, purchased the obligatory t-shirt:

It was Marti Gras night for dinner!  We all got our beads and made a lot of noise.  The restaurant is part of the campground and they did a good job decorating it.

Tomorrow we leave Guerrero Negro and head to Bahia De Los Angeles - the beach!!