Month: October 2012

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.

10-23-2012 Humpbacks Raising a Ruckus at Moss Landing

Photo by Allen Wright

Our neighborhood humpbacks are still circling right outside the Moss Landing Harbor. They are cruising for food to fatten up for their long journey southward to the breeding grounds off southern Mexico next month. Monday they put on quite a show for our intrepid passengers who braved the rain and stormy winds to view whales. Perhaps the storm event inspired the whales to be feisty as they repeatedly raised up their massive tail stocks and slapped the water’s surface with their flukes. We don’t see this sight everyday, so it was very cool!

Sunday was a much calmer cruise, with almost glassy waters and quiet whales. The impressive and abundant jellies, multiple mola sightings and good variety of bird life kept our interest up as we patiently waited for the whales to surface from their 7-10 minute dives.

The autumn air, atmosphere and lighting is quite awesome right now out on the water. This is definitely the best time of year to enjoy the beauty of Monterey Bay from the water.

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.

10-15-2012 Humpbacks, Rissos Dolphins and, finally, Pacific White Sided Dolphins

Today the treat was a visit by some playful Pacific White Sided Dolphins. I am especially fond of this species of dolphin, as I had the rare opportunity to work with four of them at Long Marine Lab years ago. They are so acrobatic and streamlined. It is a marvel to watch them zip around the boat and ride the bow and wake. Today we had a nice group bow riding for a nice long while and then we had two that just followed us around and provided entertainment while we waited for the whales to surface. It’s nice to have dolphins about while we are in the “whale waiting” mode. Today both sets of humpbacks we found were long divers, so there was plenty of the waiting time. We did get nice close looks of the whales. The last one was clearly sleeping as it remained stationary at the surface while taking at least a dozen breathes before tossing its tail flukes for a dive.

We had an eleven year old budding marine biologist aboard today who came up with so many good questions, it really kept us on our toes and kept the dialogue interesting for all. We love fielding questions and pondering the mysteries of how all these incredible animals have developed such cool strategies for successful ocean living. It is especially rewarding to see young people so enthralled by their observations aboard Sanctuary.

Conditions remain very nice out there. We are having some morning fog, but it burns off and the seas remain calm and whales are still here!

10-13-2012 Orcas Prowling and Humpback Whales Lob-tailing!

Another incredible day out on the water. The conditions are so calm and clear – both the skies and the water. We look down into the water and see so many jellies and other cool invertebrate critters floating by all day long out there. Today started with a pretty darn good Orca sighting. It included our familiar and distinctive male, “Choptop”. He is so named due to the fact that he lost the top of his dorsal fin in some sort of accident years ago. He appears robust and healthy nonetheless and we see him regularly here in Monterey Bay. Today he was with a large female and another huge male was in the vicinity. We stayed with this pair for over an hour and had great views.

There were at least three sets of humpbacks in the bay today! We spent time with two sets. The second encounter was the most incredible. A pair lobtailed for a long time. What a show!

We’ve also seen albatross and fulmar the past few days out there.
Come on out, the water is fine!

10-12-2012 Incredible Common Dolphins and Phenomenal Humpback Whales

Some days just stand out and today was one of them. Combine glassy calm seas, clear blue water and back to back cool sightings and you get TODAY. The cruise began with close-in Risso’s dolphins. They were a small pod of adults and just cruising along. It was a nice interlude but we’d gotten the call from a fisherman friend that he had three humpback whales waiting for us farther out. So out we went!
These humpback whales were real nice today. We called them the “Tres Amigos” as they repeatedly surfaced so close together and so close to our boat. They kept making direct passes at us. We just sat there and they swam right up to our boat, diving down and directly under us multiple times. It was cool. One had an interesting crescent notch in its tail fluke, making it quite the distinctive character. The water was so clear and calm that we could see the turquoise glow of sunshine reflecting through the water off their white-edged pectoral fins. It was delightful.

It just didn’t stop today. We had two blue shark sightings and could watch the shark swim through the water. Too cool. The baby molas were all over the place and even breaching on our way in. Have we mentioned the over the top jellies lately? The huge sea nettles are massive and thick now, with a few lovely lavender moon jellies to break it up.

The real show-stealers today were the hundreds of long-beaked common dolphins frolicking around our boat for the longest time. I saw them on the horizon shortly after we had come upon our humpback whale trio and knew we had to “go for it”. These dolphins are fast and our opportunity to hang with them was fleeting. It is hard to leave whales once you have found them, but we knew where they’d be and we could come back to them. It was worth the risk! These dolphins were amazing as they rode the bow and wake of the boat, leaped out of the water, and splashed around us in all directions. When you can hang over our bow, so close to the water and look right down on so many dolphins, it is truly magical and mesmerizing. Today was a great day.

There are still a few spots open for this weekend’s 10 am trips. Now is the time!

10-11-2012 Playful Orcas for Hours, Squirting Squid and Frolicking Rissos Dolphins

This week has been really fun. Today we were with seven very playful Orcas for several hours. This particular pod of killer whales is one we love to encounter as they often show off for us. Today we had multiple breaches quite close to the boat, a cool close-up spyhop, lots of belly views and so many tail slaps we couldn’t count. They did an awesome swim-by, going right under the bow of the boat so passengers could look down into the water and see them below. Spending this amount of time with such an active group of orcas is what we live for out there. It was truly magical. Orcas have been spotted every two-three days these past few weeks in or near Monterey Bay. Now is definitely the right time to maximize your chances of viewing Orcas.

Each day is different out there and two days ago it was the “dolphin day”. A large pod of Risso’s dolphins were playing only a quarter mile from the Moss Landing Harbor mouth. What a delight. This pod was very active with a great deal of head slaps, tail slaps and even some clear leaps.

We finally left them (which was hard to do) to find whales, which we sure did. They were long divers and far from playful. But we hung with these humpback whales for long enough for all to get good looks, even though we had to play cat and mouse with their zig-zag dive patterns.

To complete the day we had a real mystery: squirts of water shooting right straight up in the air. Perplexed, we approached closely and deducted they were Humboldt squid swarming near the surface. These large squid enter Monterey Bay during warm water events and are voracious predators. Squid use jet propulsion to swim, so the squirts of water were coming from their siphons as they shot water out to move forward. We could see the squid swimming by which was a rare treat. Everyday there is a new surprise out there!

10-1-2012 Sanctuary Cruises dives into the Submarine Realm

Captain Mike aboard the submarine Antipodes with sub pilot Randy

This week are venturing into the depths as we work as the support vessel for the submersible vessel Antipodes. This five-person submarine is owned by OceanGate and affliliated with the Open the Oceans educational foundation. They are making a visit to Monterey Bay in conjunction with the just completed Blue Ocean Film Festival. OceanGate asked Sanctuary Cruises to be their support vessel during this week of dives to a shipwreck off Point Pinos near Monterey. We jumped at the opportunity to be a part of this interesting project which takes out researchers, filmmakers, teachers and students to explore up to 300 foot depths on the edge of the Monterey Submarine Canyon. This is truly a “yellow submarine” and offers two large viewing bubbles for the fortunate participants. Yesterday’s dive showed a great abundance of marine life on the wreck of the Ridell which rests a few miles offshore from Point Pinos at a depth of 300 feet. Researchers reported an abundance of small octopi, tons of rockfish and lingcod and swarms of jellies. They surveyed the wreck using 2D sonar in preparation for tomorrow’s dive to conduct 3D sonar imaging. We’ll keep you posted as the dive days progress!

Regular whale watch trips resume this Saturday, October 6th at 10 am and run daily. Our humpback whale is still hanging around Moss Landing and Rissos dolphins are plentiful!