San Diego, CA - Whale Watching

Whale watching is very popular along the Pacific coast and can take place in just about any month. There are months when humpback whales predominate, there are the blue whale months but the winter is the time for the grey whales. These whales spend summer in the Arctic feeding on little crustaceans off the ocean floor. They swoop in on their side (usually the right side and sometimes the older whales are blind in the right eye) scooping up these little crustaceans along with a lot of sea floor rocks and sand and whatever. They they strain the sand and rocks out through their baleen (kind of like a comb) and eat the crustaceans.

Then in October to January they all migrate 10,000 miles south to the Baja where some will mate, some will calve and some will nurse. Then in February and March they begin the long 10,000 mile migration back up to the Arctic. Imagine that - 20,000 miles in a year at a speed of about 5 mph. Actually, that is the longest annual migration of any mammal. And most of them swim alone although mothers will stay with their young for a while. By the way, for you females, the gestation period for a grey whale is 13 1/2 months. Oh, boy.

Tuesday is 2-1 day at Whale Watch of San Diego and we decided to take advantage of that great price, and, judging by the numbers signed up online, the boat will not be full. O-o-o-h, what is that we see in the parking lot as we are pulling in? It’s a yellow bus disgorging lots of small people. Oh, no, not a boat load of middle school kids. Maybe we should go next Tuesday but, as we are signing in, the clerk volunteered that the kids were going on another boat.

It was bustling on the pier.

It was a beautiful day in San Diego. The sun was shining brightly, the temperatures were in the 70’s and the ocean was glassy, with only smaller swells rather than the large swells the Pacific can be known for.

We had taken some Dramamine prior to leaving the RV - just in case. The boat we were sailing on, the Privateer, began its life 41 years ago as the first ever whale watching boat in Provincetown, MA and sailed from there for 10 years from 1973 - 1983. Now, here’s the interesting part - sometime between our marriage in 1973 and 1985 when we moved to Minnesota, we sailed on a whale boat out of Provincetown, MA. Can’t remember the name and our pictures are in storage in West Des Moines but we wonder if this was the same ship.

The boat had about 100 on it and there was good viewing room for all. We sailed about 1 mile out of the harbor and headed south in what is the usual path for the whales. We had some good luck in the first 45 minutes and saw about 4 whales, one a mother with a calf (though I couldn’t see the calf). Then, the captain headed north to find some more whales to follow. We saw two more but then had to head back to harbor. Now, when I say that we ‘saw’ I really mean that we saw some spouts off in the distance,

followed by the arched backs of whales as they dove into the water

and finally we saw some tails as they finished their dive. We saw lots of tails. Actually, I’m not sure that I did any ‘whale’ watching but I sure did some ‘tail’ watching.

We looked back towards the where the captain was at one point and saw our life rafts, all tangled and knotted up in lines. And our life preservers were inside the boat, under the seats that lined the inside cabin. Personally, I think we should have all been wearing the life preservers and the lines should have been untangled and looking ship-shape. (And wash off that white ‘stuff.’) What is that white stuff, anyway?

A fun trip and so neat to see so many whales. Maybe you are wondering why we thought the cruise so successful if we saw only 5 whales in 3 hours of being on the ocean. Well, there are several explanations:

• We rode for 3 hours, but it probably took 1 of those hours to get us through the bay out to the open ocean, later back into the bay and docked at the pier. And if you think we have to jockey to get our RV’s parked, we were very impressed with how the pilot pulled into the pier…backwards! (And you know how everybody else is getting younger than us these days ;-)  ? Well, we think this pilot was probably only 25 yrs old…but he seemed very competent).
• There are several whale watching companies, and they don’t want to start infringing on each other, so if one boat already is ’tailing’ some whales, the other boats do not get too close.
• Silly whales do not really think they need to ‘pose’ for pictures, and are underwater except when they come to the surface to breathe. So they appear, and disappear, quickly. By the time someone would see one, and alert the rest of us, we would then fumble with our cameras and - miss all the action. ‘Good’ photos are few and far between. We actually saw more whale action than our pictures captured.
• These are gray whales, which are not the great ‘leapers’ you see on commercials thrusting much of their bodies out of the water. Grays just expose their back, maybe expose their tail upon diving.
• The boats do stay a fair distance from the whales, so as not to disturb them unnecessarily. So we are shooting photos at max-telephoto almost always.
• You are seldom standing in the perfect location when the whale appears. If the whale surfaces on the left side of the boat, you are on the right. Or, just when you take your perfect shot, another passenger steps in front of you, or the boat rocks, etc…and gone is the perfect shot.

Back at the dock we returned to the RV for lunch. I was so tired that I’m surprised that my nose didn’t fall into my yogurt. I even laid down for about 10 minutes but then it was time to walk so we headed over to the Pacific Beach boardwalk and put in our 4 miles. How I ever got one foot in front of the other I do not know and Gary was the same way. And, we bought the ‘non-drowsy’ Dramamine. Imagine what the regular Dramamine would have done to us? We might have fallen asleep on the boat and not seen anything.