Author: Dorris Welch

10-18-2012 Resident Humpbacks Rule Moss plus Risso’s Dolphins

Another beautiful day out on the bay today. The two humpback whales are making their rounds right outside of the harbor mouth. Today we got some very close swim-bys which was a thrill for our passengers.

The strange sighting for today was an elephant seal inside the Moss Landing Harbor right in the center of the channel. We have never seen this before. Normally they are foraging in the deep waters of the canyon and only pop up for air about once an hour for five minutes or so. This elephant seal must have gotten a bit confused today!

10-27-2012 Moss Landing is having a Humpback Feeding Frenzy!!!

The anchovies are back – and the lunging humpbacks – and the diving pelicans – and the cavorting sea lions. It is wild here at Moss right now. We had two humpback whales at sunset lunging straight up out of the water with their gaping mouths open and huge bulging chins expanding. What a thrill! It was a flurry of activity as the seabirds circled and dove, the sea lions porpoised and then the huge whales emerged. The same thing happened exactly one year ago at Santa Cruz. I was hoping it would happen again on my birthday and it sure did!

That wasn’t all. The Rissos Dolphins are close in and plentiful. They are frolicking. This may be due to the crazy influx of Humboldt squid in the bay. We were in a feeding frenzy of squid and birds and it was wild. You could see the dark red squid dart through the water right by the boat and when they surfaced they shot up squirts of water five feet high!

It is over the top awesome out there right now. We love October on the bay!

10-24-2012 The Big Three Today! Orca, Humpback Whales and Dolphins

It started out pouring down rain and I gather our small load of passengers inside the cabin to stay dry. We were hoping for the trusty humpbacks that have been circling right outside of Moss today. But there were gone. We headed out towards the southwest to a whale report and soon found Risso’s dolphins. It was a great pod that displayed some playful behavior – leaping, tail lobbing and breaching. We love it when they do this! After some good looks we kept on towards the whale report. By this time the sun was shining and a huge brilliant rainbow appeared. It was magical.

Sure enough, we found the whales! These two were really cool, as they just circled our boat, popping up on a different side each time they surfaced. Short dives, close-up looks and some nice tail flukes. The black-footed albatross was an added treat.

It was a good day and we were happy with our sightings, including a mola, many different species of pelagic birds and tons of jellies. As we contentedly approached the Moss Landing Harbor mouth the large tall black dorsal fin of a big male Orca appeared. Now this is how we like to top off a good day! He had just made a sea lion kill and was a happy killer whale. In fact, he gave us a nice tail toss and a breach! The day turned into a GREAT day.

10-17-2012 We Hit the Jackpot! Orcas, Humpbacks and Rissos Dolphins


This photo shows one of the many frolicking Rissos dolphins we observed today as they leaped about the boat over and over and over! The hour-long dolphin interlude was enough to make anybody’s day.

But something impelled me to break away from the delightful dolphins to go searching for some larger cetaceans. It was not long before I saw the tell-tale tall black dorsal fins of a small pod of Orcas barely visible in the sparkling sun reflecting off the water. But, I knew exactly what we had. Southward we went to meet up with this awesome trio of Orcas which consisted of a very large bull, a younger male and a large female. They were on the move, but let us follow along as they zig-zagged their way westward, then northward, then southward, then westward again. All got some real good views of them and photo ops, too.

Then it was time to head back east as the winds were picking up. We reluctantly left the Orcas and made our way back towards Moss, content with our really good sightings for the day. Of course, I’m always looking for more. Well, just as we’d passed the MLA buoy outside the Moss Landing Harbor and I’d resigned myself that perhaps there were no baleen whales in the bay – WOW! Two large humpbacks surfaced quite close to the boat, giving all a thrill with their explosive blows and huge backs. The tail flukes were icing on the cake. We got four nice surfacings before heading back into the harbor. What a perfect eleventh hour sighting!

Photo by Eric Mailander

10-16-2012 Quick looks at a Variety of Species Today

Beautiful calm and sunny conditions made for a very pleasant cruise today. We had brief looks at a good variety of wildlife today. Here’s the list: humpback whale right at Moss Landing, harbor porpoise, Dall’s porpoise, Pacific White-sided Dolphins, Elephant Seal female, many molas, blue shark plus many birds, jellies, sea lions and otters. It’s great to see the Dall’s porpoise back in the bay. I used to see them on most trips when I was working on marine mammal research surveys years ago. They have been real scarce the past few years, but just in the last week or so sightings are on the increase. We hope they stick around and start playing around the boat again, as bow-riding black and white Dall’s are a cool treat.