In order to get to the whale watching in Guerrer`o Negro, you drive through the salt ponds. These are huge- you can see them from space (read more).

The Gray Whales were pretty neat. We paid $40USD (each) to ride in a boat for about two hours, with an expert guide who was careful not to disturb the whales. He was able to drift us next to the whales on several occasions- Ted got to pet/scratch the nose of a whale for about ten seconds, Tamara got to touch one for a few seconds. The only annoying thing were the other two people on the boat- they didn't care if everyone was standing on the same side of the boat, risking a tipover. We would alternate sides to keep the risk down, but they didn't.