Thursday, August 27, 2026
Glassy seas and early morning light greeted Sanctuary as we cleared Moss Landing Harbor. We passed several individual humpbacks before encountering a cow-calf pair, shortly followed by a dramatic breach from an adult whale approximately two hundred yards away from us.
Later a pod of roughly one hundred long-beaked common dolphins bounded in from the south, quickly converging on our bow and riding the waves alongside the vessel.
Conditions remained calm and beautiful for our second trip. Guests were treated to multiple humpback and dolphin sightings. Dense bait balls of anchovies had concentrated near the surface, drawing multiple groups of humpbacks into coordinated lunge-feeding bouts. The feeding frenzy attracted seabirds—including sooty shearwaters, Brandt's cormorants, common murres, and brown pelicans.
In total, we logged eighteen humpbacks across the day, alongside a pair of sea otters in the harbor. The incredible biodiversity of Monterey Bay was on full display which reminded us how it earned the nickname, the Serengeti of the Sea.