The action still hasn’t stopped in The Monterey Bay. And most of the action is within a few miles from the Moss Landing Harbor. As we were just getting started and on the hunt for humpbacks, a scattered group of long-beaked common dolphins came buzzing through and began following us. That distracted us for about an hour.
During the dolphin mayhem we lost track of the humpbacks and decided to head further out in search of more humpbacks maybe some gray whales. We didn’t find any humpbacks out there. But we did find more dolphins and had great looks at a trio of gray whales.
Then on the way in, we came across three female orcas. So that was a nice way to end the trip. We also came across two humpbacks about two miles outside the harbor.
It’s looking more and more like we are going to experience what could be a historical first here in the Monterey Bay. That would be year round reliable humpbacks in good numbers feeding right out in front of Moss Landing. It pretty much hasn’t stopped since they came back last March. A major change in the migratory behavior of at least some of these Moss Landing Humpbacks.
Today we had breaching and tail lobbing humpbacks. Maybe 6-10 whales in all. Just incredible. Usually, the majority of our humpbacks in the Monterey Bay migrate to Southern Mexico in November and December. Humpbacks were rarely spotted in The Bay from January through March.
We also had a rare encounter with mating gray whales today. It is very unlikely that these gray whales we encountered today will make it all the way down to their historical mating and calving grounds. We usually start to see the northbound gray whales coming through the Monterey Bay on their way to Alaska in March.
We are only one month away from the traditional start of our humpback whale season. That’s when the majority of the Eastern Pacific population of humpback whales begin to return to their feeding grounds along the Pacific Coast and more specifically right out in front of Moss Landing.
The big difference this year was that some of these humpbacks never did the southbound migration. I believe we are seeing migratory evolution right before our eyes. Truly remarkable.
We haven’t even done any gray whale trips yet. But we have been seeing them on occasion right out in front of Moss Landing.