Naturalist Blog

Summer seems to have come and gone in the flash of an eye. Post Labor Day crowds have dwindled, and light loads grace the boats, adding a personal touch to the guest experience. In spite of the ever persistent fog, Captain Danny deftly found us a great bounty of humpback whales, five in total… along with a large troop of California Sea Lions, all feeding together on a large school of anchovies. As the fog burned off (finally!) several other humpbacks were revealed, along with the first glimpse of blue skies seen in weeks. A beautiful day. -Naturalist Isaiah

We were lucky enough to have some curious humpback whales hang out with us today! Capt. Rod took us offshore to do some exploring with some limited visibility but I was still able to spot 2 humpback whales in the fog. As we safely approached the 2 massive animals we realized they were headed right…

Our air quality has improved and the smoke has dissipated from most of the Monterey Bay recently! I’ve been happy to see the blue sky again, our lovely hills and sand dunes that surround our beautiful bay. The one thing I love about working as a marine biologist in the Monterey Bay is that our…

We had some fog Tuesday morning, there was about half a mile of visibility, so we knew finding animals would be difficult. The first hour and a half of the tour was pretty uneventful. Captain Rod brought us north to the submarine canyon, then went east toward the town of Moss Landing. Just as we…

Success! Despite indefatigable fog and smoke, The Pacifica was able to locate three humpback whales, who mercifully spent prolonged periods of time at the surface, making for good looks. The second trip found a mother and her young, both adorned with stark white undersides. The calf surprised us with two stellar breaches, one of them being very, very close to the boat. After two successful trips in the haze, mother nature decided that we had had enough, offering only skunks for the evening trip. –Naturalist Isaiah–

Smoke. Smoke and fog made for an exceptional challenge today, and after searching far and wide across the bay, no animals were to he had for the morning trip. Our afternoon trip caught a brief glimpse of a humpback whale just as it vanished again back into the haze, though as it did so, a pod of roughly 100 Risso’s dolphin made a miraculous appearance. Amongst their ranks was Casper, the famous albino Risso’s Dolphin, as well as three pacific white sided dolphin, who approached the boat with glee. After satiating ourselves with dolphin, we made one final stab out to the west in hopes that we might find some clarity farther offshore. Relentless, smoke and fog endured, and no humpbacks were to be seen. However, spirits were high amongst the passengers, and a fun time was had by all…

An orange glow was in the sky over the entire Monterey area as we set off for our 9am whale watch. After checking out a few sea otters in the harbor, we set off to explore the bay and beyond. We came across 2 humpbacks that seemed to be logging (sleeping). We next headed south…

An orange glow was in the sky over the entire Monterey area as we set off for our 9am whale watch. After checking out a few sea otters in the harbor, we set off to explore the bay and beyond. We came across 2 humpbacks that seemed to be logging (sleeping). We next headed south to Carmel Bay where we came across a small pod of Risso’s dolphins (about 15 animals). As we watched the dolphins a purple striped jelly floated by, one of the rarer jelly species in the Monterey area. We headed back north toward Monterey and encountered another 3 humpback whales. These whales were more active than the previous pair; one even rolled over and slapped its pectoral fins for us. We spent a good half hour with these whales before heading back to the harbor and…

We had an amazing Labor Day weekend here at Discovery Whale Watch with great weather and animal sightings! The reliable humpback whales are still in the area and still provided us with great looks. Dolphins were seen this holiday weekend too, we got looks at Pacific white-sided dolphins and Risso’s dolphins. One of our more…

Today was an adventurous day, with strong winds on the forecast and a thick wall of fog that stood before us as we left Monterey Harbor. Undeterred, Captain Danny pressed on, out west to the edge of the continental shelf, where the fog broke to reveal two massive humpback whales. Judging by their girth, these two leviathans showed no signs of trouble in satisfying their ravenous appetites: winter-fasting would likely not be an issue for them. Both big beautes gave us a few close passes and some classic tail shots before the wind picked up, stirring the seas and sending us back into the bay where we enjoyed some sunshine during one last search for dolphin. After a few quick looks at some Harbor Porpoise, we left, satisfied with our day, for Monterey Harbor just as the wind caught up…

Today was an absolutely incredible trip aboard the Pacifica with Captain Rod, deckhand Reed, and myself. The weather had picked up a lot more than we had expected, so we had quite a few bumps on the way out. When the wind is high, although it means there is a bit more motion on the…

Wow, wow, wow. What a day. As we left the harbor, the ocean conditions looked quite nice. Light wind, light swell, not much motion. However, the visibility looked to be pretty poor. The fog never stops us from finding whales, but we were expecting it to take a little bit longer to get onto our sightings due to these conditions. We pushed out west on the Pacifica with Captain Rod, deckhand Alfredo, and myself. After about 20 minutes of traveling, we found the fog completely opened up, giving us amazing visibility! We could now look out onto the horizon, and we spotted hundreds of hundreds of birds gathered around an area not too far from us. Where there are birds, there will be food! As we got closer and closer to the birds, we could see more and more of…