Moss Landing Humpback Whale Lunge-feeding Humpback whale. These things were doing this every few minutes. Photo: Sack 03-23-2017

Epic day on the Monterey Bay. Conditions were questionable early on. We had a pretty solid lump on the water. This can make it difficult for spotting. We have what we call a troft. With a 6′-8′ troft sometimes animals and their blows can be hard to see.

Moss Landing Humpback Whales Lunge-feeding for an hour straight. Photo: Sack 03-23-2017.

But after about 45-minutes of running we came across a few blows and slowed the boat to get a feel for what direction they were heading and what they were doing. So we hung with a couple of different pairs of humpbacks that appeared to be feeding at about 80′-100′. I could see what looked like tailfish marks on the meter. So that was cool.

Moss Landing Humpback whales The humpbacks are back. We’ve only had to got a few miles lately to find whales. It’s nice to be on them within 30-minutes of leaving the harbor. Photo: Sack 03-23-2017.

But then one of the passengers spotted a nice pod of long-beaked common dolphins. Now we’re talking. Dolphins area awesome. They like to follow the boat and bow ride and jump out of the water. It amazing. As they bow ride and jump out of the water alongside the boat, we can hear them “clicking”. This “clicking” sound is the dolphins using an adaptation known as “echo location”. As the dolphins send out a sound wave or “click”, the sound wave will bounce off objects and back to the dolphins lower jaw. Where it’s widely thought that they are able to interpret distance, shape and density of objects within it range.

More Lunge-feeding. Photo: Sack 03-23-2017

After tracking three to four different humpbacks, we noticed another 4-5 humpbacks “lunge-feeding on the inside. Maybe a mile or so from our position. We were on it. Full on feeding frenzy complete with California Brown Pelicans diving, cormorants, long-beaked common dolphins and more.

Moss Landing Loon We’ve been seeing lots of loons. Photo: Sack, 03-23-2017

Incredible trip. The Spring action has begun! As we get closer to April, we should start to see more orcas showing up in The Bay. They’ll be here stalking the gray whale mother calve pairs that will soon be making their way up from the breeding and calving grounds in the warm water lagoons of Pacific Baja. These animals travel over 10,000 round trip.Thought to be the longest migration of any mammal. And they do it without eating. They rely on that blubber layer to get through the 3-4 months they spend in Baja.