The Magdalena Bay Adventure 2025
I grew up with the ocean being a daily part of my life. Either ten miles offshore spearfishing with my dad, or a quick trip down the road to Deep Bay for a dip and some cliff jumping. You would think that all of that would make me extremely comfortable in the ocean, but somehow I have always had a deep fear of the bottomless blue of open water.
Even after years spent working with the very animals you might think that fear comes from, the moment I step off the boat and into the water is always one of self-control and fear suppression. It is not the animals that bring those feelings up. It is the unknown. It is the animals that make handling those feelings worth it.
Being the first person off the boat is always a challenge, but now I insist on it. It feels as if I let someone else beat me into the water, I will lose the sharp edge I have built through years in the field. And once it is gone, it might not come back.
Flash forward twenty years, and my girlfriend Kyra and I are guiding a group of highly adventurous people forty miles offshore from Magdalena Bay. The goal is to find the swarming schools of sardines being pushed to the surface by large marine predators, then to step into their world and witness one of the most intense wildlife encounters a person can have in the ocean. I am expected to be the first off the boat, with the clients watching for the hand signal that tells them it is time to get in.
The best sign of a baitball is the low, circling birds diving at the water. From the surface, they are one of the only ways to narrow down where to direct the boat. Once we get close, the surface of the water tells you how intense things are below.
Forty miles out, I am watching fins break the surface tension. I cannot tell exactly what is going on, but this is the place, and the time has come. I quietly slip into the water, trying to make as few bubbles as possible. Not to avoid spooking anything, but to clear my vision as fast as I can.
As the bubbles fade, I see that I have dropped straight into the fray. I am surrounded by three to four-meter striped marlin darting after what is left of a baitball. I turn to signal everyone to get in, but all that comes out of my snorkel is a muffled “Holy shit.”
There are only a handful of sardines left, so the marlin flash their stripes and rush past me as if to warn me away from their meal. Within seconds, I capture one of my favorite images of the trip: a huge marlin turning broadside in an aggressive display meant to push me back. When the others enter the water, the expressions on their faces mirror mine, and they understand exactly what we are in for and why we are here. All expectations collapse into a reality that is so much wilder than anything any of us imagined.
The ocean never lets you predict anything. You can learn to work with it rather than against it, but you cannot make promises, you cannot hold expectations, and you definitely cannot try to control it. Our first day was overcast, but it gave us the clearest water and the best baitballs of the entire trip. Each day had its own magic, but those first moments are what stay with me. And they are why I will be back next year.
