Fast Fiction

Here we go! The start of whale watching season for 2005.

The Pacific Gray Whales started their migration a couple of months ago from the Bering and Chukchi Seas and they’re finally making their way past southern California. The first ones were spotted passing Pt. Vicente about a month ago and they’re continuing at a pretty good pace.

Today, since the weather was nice, I got my first opportunity to go out and see the whales.

The trip started promising. Traveling towards Catalina, we had the sun in front of us, which is great for spotting blows. We left the dock at 1:30 (and returned moments later to pick up a small party that arrived late) and had the good news that the morning trip spotted one whale. On Saturday we saw a Gray Whale from the bluff in Laguna and the census has reported promising numbers.

About 40 minutes out I noticed a what seemed to be a large pod of dolphins (but they were miles off and I couldn’t be sure) so I pointed it out to the captain. We both debated whether they were feeding pelicans or dolphins and as we got closer it was obvious to both of us that we had a large pod of dolphins (we guessed Common Dolphins at that time). They were heading north and the captain pointed us towards the north to catch up with them. They were not common dolphins at all, but bottlenose dolphins, which I’ve never seen off the coast here (though they’re not, by any means rare). The dolphins were traveling in smaller groups within the large pod, usually three or more, often porpoising in synchronized sequence.

The little kids (mostly boys aged four to ten) were excited by the dolphins and how close they approached the boat, including quite a few that took to bowriding for a short periods. We spent at least a half an hour among the dolphins, with many swimming below and around the boat, some crossing in front, others far off and uninterested in interacting with us.

They didn’t seem to be feeding, just traveling. If they were feeding, there would probably be at least some birds in proximity.

After that, we turned back towards shore to do some whale searching. I spent most of my time up on the top deck looking for characteristic blows. However, as we were heading pretty close back to shore (and pretty much defeated) the captain spotted some tell-tale “fluke-prints” which are little disturbances in the surface from either a whale’s flukes as it swims under the water, or usually where the whale broke the surface last. So we slowed and turned and waited.

And here’s where it go so vexing. The creature kept making fluke-prints, it was swimming very close to the surface and must have come up for a breath or two (we watched it for almost 30 minutes), but we never saw more than the smallest part of where its blowhole was. There was tail flip, no back knuckles ... nothing. This guy was in stealth mode. Rather than sit on the creature who obviously wasn’t interested in us and of course you’re not supposed to harrass a whale, we moved on.

At the end we stopped at one of the buoy’s at the breakwater to look at the sea lions, which always pleases me.

I’m looking forward to being a bit more active in my role as docent next trip. Hopefully next weekend.