Stop Your Blubbering

But what Royal Caribbean didn't provide, Mother Nature did. The next morning I was up with the sun, thanks to jet lag and my having bailed out on the Rockin' Dueling Pianos the night before. I was nursing coffee in the chill morning gray of Deck 11 as Captain Lindegren swung us inland and pointed the bow between some guano-covered rocks into Ensenada's harbor. A pair of sea lions eyed us indifferently from the foamy base of the rocks. Fifty yards off the starboard side, my eye was drawn to a puff of mist, quickly followed by a second. Two slick and sparkling backs rolled out of the charcoal-colored sea; a third cloud of mist and a third back emerged just behind them. The trio disappeared, only to repeat their undulating breach a few seconds later. They were moving steadily, which I guess is the way you move if you're an animal that commutes 12,400 miles a year.

I had met my whales. In the words of Ahab: Phew.

I was thus an easygoing whale enthusiast when I walked down the gangplank into Ensenada. Formerly a major tuna center, it's gaining ground now as a tourism spot for Mexicans and a cruise port for Americans. It's a pretty city, a wide harbor in the protective hug of the surrounding mountains. They've ginned up the usual bargain-hunters' row of cruise-ship-approved jewelry and souvenir shops, but to me the city's appeal was in the long, dusty blocks of unimproved Mexican waterfront. I walked from the ship to the busy stretch of docks and began asking about whale-watching cruises. The answer was always the same: Sergio. Sergio will take you.

I found Sergio in a tidy storefront office in front of a fishing pier labeled Sergio's Sport Fishing. Yes, he had whale cruises leaving every day during the winter. Today's would take off at 11 a.m., an hour from now. The cost for four hours was $25.

I may have been hoping for a rusty old scow with Sergio at the helm, but the Ensenada Clipper turned out to be a trim, if austere, 85-foot trawler. About 20 other tourists were aboard, all Mexican families and groups of friends. We each put on an orange life jacket, and the guide, a biology student from the local university, handed me a pamphlet describing the route in English. But her spiel, which she began as we gurgled away from the dock, was in Spanish. Not to worry; her microphone broke after five minutes, and we all went without a soundtrack.

For an hour we motored out through light rain and four-foot seas to the rocks guarding the entrance to All Saints Bay. It was cold, but almost everyone stayed on deck. One man, a restaurant owner from near Tijuana, wore a serape under his life vest.

"Over there," cried a crew member, pointing out to the right. "Two . . . three of them."

It's not "Thar she blows!", but it did sound better in Spanish.

We all gathered along the starboard rail, and the captain gunned it toward the spouts. Before we got close, another pod surfaced much closer, three of them to the left. No one missed it as the two adults ended their rise with their tails in the air, a tandem dance of grace and might.

"Mira! Mira!" called the crowd. "Look!"

For the next 90 minutes, we trailed six or seven groups, probably 15 whales in all. Sometimes the skipper idled alongside them, 20 or 30 yards away, close enough for us to hear the air rush from their blowholes in a fountain of spray and whale breath. Of all the whale trips I've taken, only Alaska, with its garish leaping orcas, was more satisfying than this bare-bones cruise out of Ensenada.

On the way back in, as we passed the seals, sea lions and pelicans that gathered on the harbor rocks, I struck up a conversation with an engineering professor and his wife and sister. We talked whales and politics, and when we docked they invited me to join them for a coffee to warm up. As always when you run into friendly locals, that led to the best times and the best food of the trip. In this case, the fish tacos of Ensenada.

"Forget those places near the ship," Roberto had said of the tourist stands lining the waterfront. Instead, he drove us five blocks inland to Taqueria El Fenix, a small street-corner stand that would have been unassuming except for the huge crowd gathered around it. An identical stand across the street had no customers. We joined the throng, waving like pit traders until we caught the eye of the woman in charge. She handed over, on a fresh tortilla, a hunk of fish, battered and fried in a kettle. It was the kind of surprise delicacy that road-food gourmands live for. The fish was white and steaming; the beer batter was as light as tempura. The self-serve bowls of onions, peppers and chili sauces were fresh, clean and delicious.

Those fish tacos -- I had four of them -- were a perfect goodbye from Ensenada. And they were basically my last brush with sea life on the cruise. The next day was a bust, whale-wise. We spent the day idling about 20 miles off the coast of San Diego in an international limbo that allowed the casino, bingo games and bars to run at full speed all day. There were belly-flop competitions, salsa lessons, rock climbing, yoga classes and lots of mating rituals to observe, particularly around the pool bar. But no whales.

After two hours in the Viking Crown Lounge, an elevated bar with 360-degree views that is much more comfortable than the whaling crow's-nests of old, I saw nothing but one group of spouts a few hundred yards away. During four miles on the jogging track on Deck Seven, I saw a seal and lots of sea birds, but no whales. And from the sushi bar with the grand aft windows? Nothing.

A sailboat owner from San Diego told me we were too far from shore. "We'll probably see some in the morning coming into port if the sun's up," she said.

In that case, I knew what to do. It's one reason I wanted to do my whaling from a cruise ship, and it's what Ahab should have done instead of going all literary about his own lack of whale.

I ordered a margarita and headed for the belly-flop contest.

Royal Caribbean offers three- and four-night cruises on the Monarch of the Seas out of Los Angeles, with stops in Ensenada, Mexico, and/or San Diego and Catalina Island. With departures each week, interior cabins start as low as $219. 866-562-7625, http://www.royalcaribbean.com.