Whale Watching in 2018

James S.

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Hello everyone! Sorry for the long wait to read the latest in whale watching blogs, we had a lull in whales and then I was out of the building for a while. But now that we’re all back and the whales are definitely in town there’ll be blogs to keep up with when you want to know who’s out on the water.

Looking back at 2018 we had a lot of great sightings. Our naturalists alone recorded 10 orca sightings! We also are in the middle of a great Pacific white-sided dolphin season (my personal favorite). And while the gray whale season started a little late, the humpbacks were there to help us out in the interim. Talking with our naturalists they voted for some of their favorite times on the whale watches this year. Our newest naturalist on one of her training days was able to see orcas from both the CA51 and 216 pods hanging out together off of Point Vicente. Another one of our favorites was when I was out with a naturalist training new interns and the naturalist was commenting to me about how fin whales weren’t exactly her favorite to find since they are not very energetic and they don’t really fluke. And while we were just sitting there a fin whale lunge feeds at the surface right in front of the boat almost scaring our naturalist at the sight of it! She didn’t fully change her mind about fin whales, but it made for an exceptionally enjoyable whale watch.

This month also marks the beginning of another photo ID intern season! We will have Taylor, Nicole, Makayla, and Ashley joining us this season. Watch for their photos and input into the blogs this spring as they monitor and catalog all our cetacean friends from now until the end of April. And be sure to get on down to the Aquarium to get yourself a combo ticket to the Aquarium of the Pacific and Harbor Breeze Cruises. Whale watches run every day at 12:00 and 3:00 p.m. right now.

See you on the water!