As this God-Forsaken year draws to a close, Discovery whale watch has blessed with juxtaposition these last two days. Yesterday, our only trip took two hours to find but a single humpback after a long and bumpy ride (strong easterly winds riled up the seas). The humpback was merciful, offering several tail throws and decent…
Today was a special day (though what day isn’t special when you work on a whale watching boat?). Captain and Co-owner of Discovery Whale Watch John Mayer took the helm on this fine winter morning: noteworthy, as running the business and readying our new boat keeps him quite busy these days. A man of considerable…
As most humpback whales migrate out of area, we anticipate the arrival of these magnificent creatures. Gray whales migrate in great numbers past our area to head to their warm breeding grounds in the middle of the Baja California Peninsula. Around mid-February we will already see a few grays heading back up to their Northern…
Killer Killer Whales. T’was a beautiful morning yesterday, as Captain Danny led us “South” (as opposed to North). Goin’ South. as we say, is quite the treat; Monterey’s rugged coastline offers a spectacular back drop that gets better and better the farther you go. Just as we passed Cypress Point (the northern boundary of Carmel…
Today’s trip was simply incredible, but in a subtle way. We saw a few hundred Risso’s Dolphin, and we saw a handful of whales. No breaches, no backflips. Just honest good looks, and a lot of Mastery in Captain Danny’s orchestration of the trip. At one point, a small child shouted out to a humpback,…
This is getting ridiculous. Trip after trip, and the running streak of high quality trips continue. Thursday morning, I returned from Moab, Utah to be greeted by a pod of (well over) two thousand dolphin, the vast majority of which were Risso’s Dolphin. Deep divers: they roam the edges of the continental shelf, hunting squid…
Have you noticed that a humpback whale’s head is really bumpy?! The dark bumps you see are called tubercles, they are a large hair follicle that covers the humpback’s rostrum. Nerves are within the tubercle and a short hair can also protrude from it. Many researchers believe that humpbacks could be using the tubercles to…
Fortune. I truly have the greatest job in the world. After a harrowing (near death) experience in the mountains, where I spend my abundant spare time, what better place to return to, than the almighty sea? Only the great expanses of water, with their wind and waves (or lack therof, in this case) could conjure…
Beautiful blue skies and a calm seas greeted our guest today at Discovery Whale Watch. Capt. Rod guided our crew and guest to a hot spot from yesterday that did not disappoint. From a distance we started seeing splashes from active Risso’s dolphins and the blows from a few humpback whales! We decided to concentrate…
We had a foggy morning with smooth seas aboard the Pacifica with Captain Rod and Alfredo as crew. It took us a whole hour of traveling north before finding any wildlife. We found a single humpback through the thin fog making its way west. We followed it until it brought us to another 4 humpbacks!…