I was looking forward to coming home—born and raised in Los Angeles, I lived several of my early adult years in the San Diego area. After spending a few days in Los Angeles catching up—and putting on what felt like 5 lbs of weight due to home cooking—I headed southeast to the suburbs and then to San Diego to catch up with old friends, eventually meeting up with my wife to end the trip encountering leopard sharks in La Jolla Cove. I last saw a leopard shark over 20 years ago in the kelp forests off La Jolla, so I was looking forward to visiting one last old friend, this time from the comfort of the shore.

The world is so vast that often we can’t even see or begin to imagine the largest of marine phenomenon occurring right before our eyes. When you fly into Cancun International Airport and see the vast Caribbean blue waters from the air, little do you realize that during the months of May to September, the largest whale shark migration in the world is occurring. Known as a “whale” for its sheer size, these animals are in fact fish and not mammals. They are sharks, to be exact, and both the world’s largest shark and fish species growing up to 30-40 feet in length.

When we came to the Cabo area last October, we decided that we would start making regular trips to Baja throughout the year. I used to visit parts of Baja regularly when I lived in California—having grown up there—but living in the DC area for 20 years made Baja somewhat of an inconvenient trip. But now that we’re in Houston and a short direct flight away, we’re out of excuses. Makos, blues, mobula rays, sea lions, marlins, bait balls, and the occasional whale sighting seemed like a good start to build a yearly schedule around.

If there’s one thing I can say about 2023 it’s that sharks have ruled our airwaves so far. After spending two weeks in Playa del Carmen diving with the bull sharks, we headed over to Jupiter, Florida to spend a few days with the lemon sharks. The lemons start to migrate around this time of year for what Floridians call the lemon shark aggregation, so we were hoping to catch a few. They did not disappoint.