Mike McGettigan

Born in December of 1939, Mike was raised in the Pacific Northwest. He graduated from Portland State University in 1965 and working in tech, he started his own business which was successful enough that he retired in 1973, bought a sailboat in San Carlos Mexico, and spent a year fishing, spearfishing, diving and filming the Sea of Cortez. Over the subsequent 47 years he has captained 3 other yachts and traveled over 350,000 miles, primarily in Mexican waters and briefly in Costa Rica and Panama.

After watching the fisheries decline for a decade, he, along with a select group of Mexicans and  Americans, started SeaWatch in 1993. SeaWatch has initiated and funded high impact changes in  laws and citizen advocacy to stop rampant illegal fishing and introduce citizen driven vigilance  and public advocacy campaigns protecting keystone reef species like parrotfish that have helped  the reef and reef fish recovery at Espiritu Santo National Park in La Paz. Similar campaigns have  been adopted in other areas and countries. He and his wife Sherry keep their current yacht (Ambar III) based in La Paz where they are still very involved with reef and reef fish recovery in the Espiritu Santo National Park, the Bay of La Paz and surrounding waters. Mike has very clear  memories of the quantity of big fish in the sea in the early 1970’s, the millions of birds and the bait  fish that kept them all alive. He has seen first hand the decimation of the major fisheries, the  disappearance of millions of birds and the prey fish that fed them. 

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What's New at SeaWatch

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SeaWatch Annual Holiday Raffle

This year's annual holiday raffle in support of our SeaWatch projects featured this beautiful, limited edition bronze sculpture, called Making Waves, donated by Scott Hanson.

This is one of Scott's most popular sculptures and and sold in major galleries for $7200.00. Read More...

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Espiritu Santo es parte de ti
2019-2020

Espíritu Santo es parte de ti (Espiritu Santo is dart of you) is a grassroots campaign working to raise public awareness and advocacy, promote community pride and best practices and eradicate illegal fishing in Espiritu Santo National Park, in particular parrotfish, a reef grazing species that is critical to the maintenance of healthy reefs. Vibrant, healthy reefs cannot survive without grazers Read More...

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Espiritu Santo es parte de ti -March 2020

March has been a month that took us all by surprise! We started with all the energy, planning our annual fundraising event. Suddenly the world turned upside down. In these scary and wild times, we wonder how long will this last? All this definitely made us reorder our priorities and focus on the things that matter the most Read More...

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SeaWatch Year End Raffle

The lucky winner is Gordon Harris! Scott Hanson donated his popular “Winter Song” sculpture to SeaWatch for our year-end raffle. This beautiful sculpture was raffled in January. We thank you for your support of the raffle and look forward to your support and the success of future raffles. Money raised helped SeaWatch fund the organizations vital to the recovery of the Sea of Cortez. Watch the video of Scott Hanson here...

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Espiritu Santo es parte de ti
Featured in Conservation Watch Magazine

Conservation Watch Magazine Is published by the Garden Club of America's conservation committee members. It's a quarterly online newsletter featuring conservation and environmental news. SeaWatch is proud of the campaign we originated and support Espiritu Santo es parte de ti (Espiritu Santo is part of you) and their feature article in this magazine. Read the article...

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Gillnetting Protected Mobula Rays
See This Recent Video and Act Today

The Mobula Rays are a joy to watch as these expert acrobats jump, twirl and belly flop through the sea. The Sea of Cortez is the world's premium destination for viewing the largest schools in the world, sometimes exceeding 10,000 individuals. They are seasonal visitors and visit Baja in May-July and November - January. These rays are protected by Mexican Law Read More...

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