06-19-2015: Moss Landing Humpbacks Still the Main Show in Monterey Bay

Moss Landing Pacific White-sided Dolphin
One of about 200-300 Pacific White-sided dolphins. It’s always fun when they ride along all around the boat. Photo: Michael Sack, www.sanctuarycruises.com 06-19-2015.

Two miles outside of Moss Landing Harbor continues to be where the main action is on the Monterey Bay. Most of the whale boats from Monterey and Santa Cruz continue to make their way over to Moss Landing for the big show.

Moss Landing Humpback Whale
Humpback whale takes a dive right out in front of Moss Landing. Photo: Michael Sack, www.sanctuarycruises.com 06-19-2015.

As usual, by the time we got to the the jetties at the Moss Landing Harbor mouth today, we were already seeing  blows. So the plan has been to get on a nice group of humpbacks and hope they do something interesting.

Moss Landing Pacific White-sided Dolphin
It was nice to see a large a group of pacific white-sided dolphins. It’s been a while since we’ve seen this large of a group. Photo: Michael Sack, www.sanctuarycruises.com 06-19-2015

 

We’ve been getting the occasional tail-lobber or breacher. But for the most part, the interesting encounters were groups of six-eight humpbacks cruising, diving and feeding together just a few feet from each other. After an hour or so we heard reports of Pacific White-sided dolphins about 3-4 miles away.  And what with all the boats in the entire whale watching fleet right out in front of Moss Landing, I figured we did’t want to crowd the animals, so we made a course for the pacific white-sided dolphins.

Moss Landing Humpback Whales
This was a few of about six to eight humpbacks that were feeding together. Photo: Michael Sack, www.sanctuarycruises.com 06-19-2015.

I was sure we were going to get to them. They were reported to have changed course and were now moving away from us to the west. But we kept going and eventually caught up to them. So it was worth the extra 40-minutes of travel time out there.

We have not heard any recent reports of concentrations of animals in other parts of The Bay. So it continues to be Moss Landing for most of the action.

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