Wednesday morning’s whale watch started off sunny and calm. The Pacifica exited Monterey harbor with George the deckhand, Fredo the naturalist, and Captain Danny. Almost as soon as we exited the harbor we came across our first whale! It was a single humpback whale calf, and an active one. We watched it chin slap twice, then do a small breach. This calf did look to be under a year old, but it had parted from its mother, most likely within the last month. We stayed with it a while, following it toward shore then along the coast off Cannery Row.
The next 2 hours was a long hard search for whales in the fog banks that we ran into further out to sea. We did see harbor porpoises and California sea lions break the surface from time to time, but apart from that, no mammal activity. After a tipoff from Captain Bill on the Princess we did come across a single humpback whale accompanied by a group of about 500 California sea lions. After this whale dove, we spent the next 10 minutes sea lion watching, as the humpback decided to dive deep, and disappear into the fog.
As the trip went on, visibility began to improve as the fog started to break up. This allowed us to spot our last 2 whales of the day; a cow-calf pair of humpback whales. As whale activity had been so spotty throughout the trip, we spent a good while with this pair, getting great looks. When our time had run out, Captain Danny brought us back to the harbor.
-Naturalist Fredo
