Lunge-Feeding Humpbacks and White Sharks near the Cement Ship

On our mid-day run aboard Meridian, we bypassed our recent search areas to the north after receiving a tip from land. Just a mile off the Cement Ship, we encountered a group of eight humpback whales engaged in a highly energetic vertical surface lunge-feeding event.

Vertical lunge-feeding is a coordinated feeding strategy where whales push straight up through schooling forage fish, engulfing massive quantities of water and prey in their expandable throat grooves before filtering it through their baleen plates. Seeing this intense behavior so close to the shoreline is always a remarkable demonstration of the bay's productive nearshore ecosystem.

After watching the feeding event, we navigated into shallower waters nearby—an area known for seasonal juvenile white shark activity. Under a light chop, we successfully located two six-foot white sharks swimming slowly through the shallows, bringing our total sightings for the afternoon to ten humpback whales and two sharks.

This transition from deep-water cetaceans to nearshore predators highlights the dynamic nature of Monterey Bay. It serves as a reminder that these animals do not follow human schedules, and our success often relies as much on community collaboration as it does on our own eyes on the water.