Month: March 2013

03-28-2013: More Feeding Humpbacks, Up Close and Personal with the Four Amigos

Another excellent day on the Monterey Bay. Plenty of Humpbacks to go around and shallow krill. There were at least eight humpbacks within about a 2-mile radius. We were hanging with two that were giving us excellent looks.

Humpback Whale
The four amigos cruising for Krill on the Monterey Bay. Photo: Sack, 03-28-2013

After about 30 minutes the next thing we knew there were four of them and they just cruised along feeding together in close formation. At one point two of them crossed under the boat and we had them on both sides of the boat about 25 yards off.

This was the highlight of the trip when the gentle giant slowly cruised up to us and slowly submerged just under the bow of the boat and came up on the other side with a mighty blow. Photo: Sack, 03-28-2013
This was the highlight of the trip when the gentle giant slowly cruised up to us and slowly submerged just under the bow of the boat and came up on the other side with a mighty blow. Photo: Sack, 03-28-2013

These humpbacks have been about 8-11 miles out on the South ledge of the Monterey Bay Submarine Canyon. So we’ve been averaging about an hour out to the zone. We certainly have our eyes open for blue whales also.

Humpback Whale
The magnificent humpback doing some shallow lunge feeding. Photo: Sack, 03-28-2013.

No dolphins today but we did see about 8-10 albatross cruising in the area. We also got a short glimpse of a young female elephant seal. It’s only going to get better as we get closer to April and then into May. This is the time of the year that we start to see more orca sightings and predation incidents. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you updated.

03-27-2013: Feeding Humpbacks, Common Dolphins, Albatross and lots of Krill

The humpbacks continue to flow into The Bay after a long journey from their Winter calving and breeding grounds off the coast of Southern Mexico and Central America. There’s a lot of feed in The Bay right now and the humpbacks are on it. Both krill and tailfish.

humpback whales
Humpbacks on the prowl. Photo Sack, 03-27-2013.

We’ve also been seeing the occasional breaching salmon. Spring is here and the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary is teaming with marine wildlife. The marine conditions were outstanding today. Warm sun, glassy water and minimal swell.

Humpback whale
Humpback whale going down for the krill. Photo Sack, 03-27-2013.

It pretty much started on Monday and we’ve seen and have heard reports of more and more whales coming into The Bay. The common dolphins have also been showing up regularly. We’ve been seeing pods of about 500-1,000.

Common Dolphin
Common dolphin cruises next to our boat. Photo: Sack 03-27-2013.

On Monday I saw my first Laysan Albatross. So that was exciting. I didn’t get a crisp photo of it. But it’s good enough for I.D. purposes. See pic. below.

Laysan Albatross
Laysan Albatross does a flyby while we were hanging with humpbacks. Photo: Sack, 03-25-2013.

And then there was this seal that had just scored a sand dab. We never know what we’re going to see out there. Here’s to Spring.

Seal feasting on a fresh caught sand dab. Photo: Sack, 03-25-13
Seal feasting on a fresh caught sand dab. Photo: Sack, 03-25-13

 

03/26/2013: The Spring Humpback event has begun!

Humpback lunge feed
Humpback whale lunge feeds on a dense patch of krill about 5-miles southwest of Moss Landing. Photo: Sack 03-26-2013

Monday we had a wonderful time with three humpback whales busily feeding in the middle of the bay. Their dives were short and their flukes were many! The krill was swarming around our boat on the surface of the water so we even got to see some surface lunge feeding, with the whale’s entire mouth emerging vertically from the water, huge throat bulging with krill-laden water. Amazing.

Humpback whale
Humpback whale lunges underwater to a patch of krill about 20′ down. Photo Sack 03-27-2013.

We also came across a good look at a Northern Fur Seal. The one below in fact.

Northern fur seal.
Northern fur seal hanging out in The Bay. Photo: Sack 03-26-2013

We sure are happy the springtime krill bloom has begun in a big way. I bet the humpbacks are even more pleased. Conditions have been splendid out here.

03-24-2013: Northbound Grays, Pacific White-sided Dolphins and a Fur Seal

Gray Whale
The mighty gray whale taking a dive on it’s way to Alaska. Photo: Sack, 03-20-2013

The northbound bound gray whales continue to be a sure thing. We’ve been finding them 8-10 miles out just south of Moss Landing Harbor. We’ve also been seeing a lot of common dolphins this week as well as a feeding humpback.

Gray Whale Tail Fluke
Another gray whale tail fluke. Photo: Sack 03-20-2013

On Sunday we had a great look at the fur seal pictured below.

Fur Seal
Curious fur seal cruises next to the boat. Photo: Sack 03-24-2013.

We have heard reports of other humpbacks in The Bay and on Saturday there were reports of orcas in The Bay.

The weather has been pleasant with calm conditions in the morning and windy in the afternoon. Good Krill production conditions.

Hopefully more humpbacks will start to show up. We didn’t see one on Sunday. Only grays and dolphins. We’ll keep you updated.

03-16-2013: 1,000+ Common Dolphins, Gray Whales, Risso’s Dolphins and Black-footed Albatross

Common dolphin
Long-beaked common dolphin launches next to the boat. Photo: Sack 03-15-2013.

We have had quite the dolphin presence over the last couple of days. Yesterday we had the long-beaked common dolphin, Risso’s dolphins and Pacific White-sided dolphins. And they were are all cruising up next to the boat, launching. It was quite a spectacle.

Common Dolphin
Close up of another long-beaked common dolphin as it sped along side the boat. Photo: Sack 03-15-2013.

03-12-2013: Gray Whales, Reports of Humpbacks, Photo’s From San Ignacio Lagoon Trip

The fog rolled in last night and made the going tough at first. Then it cleared up enough for us to find 4-5 northbound gray whales. They were staying up nicely. We had excellent views. But it was a bit lumpy out there. And the fog made for chilly conditions. But the excellent looks we had made it worth the effort.

On a lighter note, here are a few photo’s from our recent trip to San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja.

Spy Hopping Gray Whale
Spy Hopping Gray Whale in the San Ignacio Lagoon. Photo: Sack 03-05-2013.
Friendly Gray Whales
Friendly gray whale in San Ignacio Lagoon checking us out, wanting us to touch it. Photo: Sack 03-05-2013.
Gray Whale
Cruising gray whale. Photo: Sack 03-05-2013.

 

 

 

03-11-2013: Back in Moss Landing, Excellent Conditions, Humpbacks, Gray Whales, Pacific White-sided Dolphins and More

It’s nice to be back in Moss Landing after a week of being in Baja hanging with the gray whales and blue whales. We had excellent conditions today with humpbacks, gray whales, Pacific white-sided dolphins and  a nice look at a young northern fur seal. There were also reports of orcas in The Bay.

It appears that the humpbacks are here to stay. With regular sightings of humpbacks and blues over the last few weeks it’s pretty clear that we have an early spring whale watching season upon us.

The wind really blew hard on Friday and Saturday. These type of strong northwesterly winds is what brings about the massive krill blooms we see in the spring and early summer. And we have been seeing plenty of krill around. So it’s just going to get better and better.

03-06-2013: San Ignacio Lagoon and Petting the Gray Whale Calves

Dorris pets a friendly gray whale calve in San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja. Photo: Captain Jesus Pachico 03-05-2013.
Dorris pets a friendly gray whale calve in San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja. Photo: Captain Jesus Mayoral 03-05-2013.

All I can say is that I’m in awe about what we experienced yesterday. Truly remarkable. Most of us that have experienced gray whales here in the Monterey Bay pretty much see the same thing each time. Maybe a spout or two, they surface and you see their backs, and if you’re lucky you see a tail fluke.

Gray whales in Baja act like entirely different animals. But in actuality, they are the same exact animals that pass by the Monterey Bay every year. And it’s entirely possible that we will see the same exact whales at some point in Monterey Bay that we saw down here in the San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja.

We had multiple friendly whales come up to us today. The mothers will actually bring their calves right up to the boat, they’ll both spy-hop, rest their heads on the boat and want human interaction. They actually want you to touch them. It’s a very moving experience to see these gental giants slowly and gracefully move along the entire side of the boat while excited passengers pet them. Just remarkable. If you like watching whales, this is a must do experience.  I have a whole new view of gray whales. We have another trip this morning.

We are in a remote area, so my phone and internet connections are spotty. But I’ll be uploading photo’s and video tonight when we get back to Loreto.

 

03-04-2013: Now in Loreto, Baja, about to head North to the town of San Ignacio

We finally made to Loreto after a five hour connecting flight delay in L.A. That was painful. We flew into Loreto last night just before a beautiful sunset. Very nice conditions today. Absolutely beautiful. We heard there were some blue whales in the area yesterday and almost went out this morning to see what’s up. But we really didn’t get up early enough. We still could have pulled it off. But we didn’t want to rush around and risk getting caught in the dark on our way to San Ignacio.

It’s supposed to be about a 4-5 hour drive from Loreto. So we decided to have a relaxing morning walk, have some breakfast and make our way to the Pacific side and the town of San Ignacio to where Dorris has a friend who owns a historic bed and breakfast in the town of San Ignacio.

We also plan on doing some free-diving somewhere along the way north in the Sea of Cortez side before we have to start heading west to San Ignacio.

Tomorrow we’re looking forward to hopefully hanging out with some friendly gray whale mother’s and calves. We have our fingers crossed. Stay tuned for photo’s and video.

03-03-2013: On Our Way to Baja to Check Out Gray Calves and Mothers in Birthing Lagoons

We’ve been wanting to do this for a couple of years. You know, check out the gray whale mother and calves in their breeding and calving grounds in the warm water lagoons of Baja.

So we finally decided to go for it. Now, here we are stuck down in LAX because our connecting flight into Loreto airport in Baja was delayed five hours. So let’s hope they get the plane fixed so we can keep on going.

Check back for photo’s and video of what we see and experience while we’re down in Baja for the week. No trips this week until Friday. But stay tuned to our blog. We are going to try and update it daily while down in Baja. It just depends on our internet connectivity.

03-02-2013: More Humpbacks Show Up, 1000+ Common Dolphins, Orcas and Grays, Northern Fur Seal

We started out to the Southwest as we headed to reports of humpbacks and gray whales. Within a few minutes of leaving the harbor we could immediately see the telltale splashing and water surface texture change of dolphins. We love dolphins. And we could tell this was a large group. Well over 1,000.

Long-beaked common dolphins
Long-beaked common dolphins cruising along side the boat. Photo: Sack 03-02-2013

As we got closer to them they changed course and headed toward us. They really seem to like riding along side, at the bow and in our wake. They leverage the energy of our boat moving through the water. Truly a spectacle to behold.

Looking down just few feet below the rail of the boat passengers were treated to closeup views of these frolicking, fast moving animals as they “porpoised” along next to the boat. Porpoising is when the animals jump out of the water at fast rate of speed and they move along. The do it to conserve energy. There is less friction as they move through the air than there is when they move the water.

So we spent about fifteen minutes cruising with the long-beaked common dolphins and then headed out in the direction of the northbound grays and feeding humpbacks. On the way it was nice to break things up a little bit as we came across a nursery pod of about 10 Risso’s dolphins. So that was cool.

Turns out the northbound grays were a lot closer as we soon came on to about six of them slowly making their North up to their feeding grounds off the coast of Alaska. So we tracked these grays for about forty-five minutes.

That’s about as much as I can take with grays. They tend to be a bit on the boring side if you ask me. Most of the time they surface, make a few blows and if we’re lucky they show us their tail flukes. Very rarely they breach. Meaning they jump out of the water. We have seen it. Like maybe once or twice per year. We have also observed breeding behavior. But also very rarely.

Humpback Whale
Early humpback surfaces next to the boat. Photo: Sack 03-02-2013

So after about 45 minutes we headed out West to do some exploring where none of the other boats had been looking yet. We didn’t see much for about 20-minutes. Then we came on to a great look at a cruising black-footed albatross and flock of about 50 phalaropes. Both these bird species are always a welcome site. We often see them feeding along side humpbacks or blues. Next thing I saw was a couple of blows and a dark object repeatedly surfacing so we made our way in that direction.

As we got closer, there they were: Two humpbacks popped, blew a couple of times and threw up their massive tail flukes. There were two massive animals. Full size humpbacks. Probably 50’+ long. Just as that happened and the animals went under, I saw the unmistakable, massive dorsal fin of a male orca. This one was at least five-feet tall.

We got a couple of more looks at the humpbacks and then started making our way to where we spotted the orca. We go a couple of decent looks before the animal disappeared and we lost him just before spotting another female orca off in the distance.

By that time we were starting to run out of time so we began making our way along the Northwestern ledge of the Monterey Bay submarine canyon.

Northern Fur Seal
Northern Fur Seal “jughandling.” Photo: Sack 03-02-2013

When we were about 20-minutes outside the harbor when I noticed the unmistakable “jug-handling” of a Northern Fur seal. So that was cool. We only see a handful of these animals each year. They usually spend most of their lives far offshore.

What a great trip. Three species of whales, two species of dolphins, phalaropes, Black-footed albatross and a northren fur seal. Hopefully it will keep getting better and better as we get closer to April.