The Chubasco and the Sur Randy both went whale watching this morning. We started out with a nice sunny day at the wharf, but that quickly changed when got outside the harbor. We entered a thick fog bank and had quite a bit of swell to deal with while searching for whales. The vessels took slightly different routes and kept in radio contact while searching so that we could cover more area with such limited visibility. The Chubasco came across an awesome group of feeding Humpbacks not too far from Point Pinos in Pacific Grove.
Both vessels were able to get spectacular views of the feeding aggregation of Humpbacks and sea lions despite the fog. Some of the whales made close passes by each boat throughout the encounter as they took a short break from feeding in turns. Since the whales were inside the bay, we were able to keep it a little more comfortable for our passengers.
The Sur Randy took a short trip out to the west to assess the weather conditions and scout around for any other near by wildlife and came up with three more Humpbacks and a handful of Pacific Whitesided Dolphins. Two of the Humpbacks we encountered were a mom and calf pair. We seemed to be babysitting the calf while mom took a nap (or break) for about 10 minutes. Mom took a deeper dive and stayed down for about 9-10 minutes while the calf circled the Sur Randy and did some tail slaps. Once the mom resurfaced; they both started to travel again.
Slater Moore was on the Sur Randy filming for his blog. He did a great job of explaining how the weather at the wharf isn’t always an accurate representation of the weather out in the bay. He was able to capture some great footage of the whales despite the fog today. This highlights how we are able to find and view whales in the fog very nicely. Check out his video here.
