SAN IGNACIO, Mexico - Call me a scaredy-cat, but there's something unsettling about floating in a skiff the size of a double-wide coffin in a lagoon full of whales.

Maybe reading about Moby Dick during my whale-watching trip to Baja California was a bad idea. Visions of a pitiless sea, tons of angry whale rising from the depths, splintered planks and my bleaching bones swam in my head as we drifted in San Ignacio Lagoon.

This lagoon, along with Scammon's Lagoon and Bahia Magdalena, is among the world's best whale-watching destinations. All three Pacific Coast bays are winter homes for gray whales, and every January, February and into March, the lagoons become virtual maternity wards for thousands of them.

Most passengers on Lindblad Expedition's Sea Lion said they'd made the trip just for the chance to shake flippers with the great beasts of the deep.

Our eight-day journey was far shorter than that of the whales. Gray whales make one of the longest of all mammalian annual migrations - 10,000 to 14,000 miles round trip. In October, they leave their feeding grounds in Alaska's Bering Sea for a two-to-three-month trip south. Then they stay in the lagoons for another two to three months, allowing their calves to fatten up, before they all swim back north.

But those days are long gone. Today's whale hunters now wield cameras, not harpoons, and have traded personal privations for comfort. And the mother whales, nicknamed "devilfish" by whalers because of their violent defensive behavior, have nothing to fear.

A guacamole-and-chip break in the tree-lined town plaza was followed by a visit to the 18th- century Mission San Ignacio de Loyola. The 4-foot-thick walls made the mission's church a cool and quiet refuge where contemplation came naturally.

Thirty years before, my wife and I had driven the Baja Highway, Mexican Route 1, about 1,000 miles from Cabo San Lucas to Tijuana. We'd driven a rust-bucket VW Bug that acted like it had a tank full of Raid, and stayed in rooms that would make a cucaracha cringe. But this time we'd hanged the expense from the yardarm (Lindblad's rates start at $3,490 per person, double occupancy).

We were delighted to be cruising south along the cactus-lined shores of the Pacific coast of Baja in our floating oasis. From sunrise to sunset, we could join other whale-watchers on the bow. And always, a naturalist with eyes like radar was scanning the ocean for whales.

Frequent sightings were called out in the military tradition of using an imaginary watch, with high noon being dead ahead. So, when a naturalist spotted a whale, she'd forgo the wild shout of Ahab's day - "Thar she blows!" - with an excited call of "Whale at two o'clock!"

All binoculars would aim at the spot of the blow to see a geyser of mist hanging in the air. If need be, the ship would slow, so we could better observe the ocean's superstars.

To our delight, after a few minutes a humpback would sound (go into a long or deep dive), throwing his fluke skyward, exposing a great tail stretching up to 18 feet wide. They're called humpbacks because as they dive, they bend their backs and point their noses down while gracefully raising their tails above the water.

Then there are the pods of dolphins, sometimes 100 or more to a pod, which would glide and leap alongside our ship. The daredevils among them would ride our bow wake, swimming close to the ship. We would peek over the side and be hypnotized by the sound of the water crashing against the bow and by the sight of dolphins taking a joy ride with us.

Not all the fun of this trip occurred at sea, though. Every day we would make stops on desert islands or along the coast. Some of Baja's coastline is little changed from the time five centuries ago when Spanish conquistadors landed here.

Baja is a scantily populated wilderness, with 75 percent of the peninsula's population living along the border with the United States. Much of it is an inhospitable desert, but we looked on it and saw a beautiful, bone-dry, spiny wonderland.

There was a brief stop in Cabo San Lucas, where buckets of beer, shopping malls and time- share vendors tempt mariners too long at sea. But we weren't buying.

Ultimately, the trip found us on that skiff in San Ignacio Lagoon, where our captain promptly cut the engine. We were becalmed: just a blue sky, a blue sea and tranquillity. We could only hear the sound of small waves lapping against the sides of our panga.

I'd read the stories about Moby Dick, Jonah and Pinocchio. So I wasn't buying all that nonsense about the gray whale's diet of krill and small fish. And what was all that talk about "friendlies" - the whales said to be curious enough to slide over for a skiff-side visit with humans?

A mother drifted over, her calf just under one of her flippers. They were two shadowy hulks blending with the blue of the sea. Even the baby was huge (they weigh up to 1,500 pounds at birth, and this calf had been nursing overtime).

Then the calf poked its rubbery head up alongside us, nuzzled our boat and looked us right in the eye before letting us have it with a whale-sized sneeze.

l Whale-watching: Landlubbers can drive to the lagoons of Baja and hire a local panga driver to take them out for a spin among the whales. But it's a long drive and the facilities are rustic. We were delighted to go by boat with Lindblad Expeditions: http://www.expeditions.com; 800-397-3348. Eight-day trips are offered in January, February and March, when the whales winter here. Prices from $3,490 per person, double occupancy.

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