First Humpbacks of the 2023/2024 Season!
We’re excited to announce that our 2023/2024 Humpback Whale Watching Season has officially begun! Today, Captain Mason and crewmember Dave, along with 9 lucky guests on board our Glass Bottom Boat saw OUR first Humpback Whales of the season! Dave tells us that around 10:15, he and Captain Mason saw some surface splashing north of…
How Whales Sing
Aloha, Baleen Whale respiratory anatomy allows for sound production We ran just one Whale Watch Cruise this weekend…Saturday’s Wake up with the Whales. Guests joining us on this cruise had to wait till virtually the end of the trip before the Humpbacks decided to show themselves to us. Earlier in the trip, we saw a…
Why Does a Humpback Make a Splash?
Aloha, Humpback “waves” his pectoral flipper in the air. Guests on our Monday Morning Wake Up with the Whales Cruise got to see 5 different Humpbacks. One of them was spouting out in the distance, but the other 4 were within a couple hundred yards of us for most of the cruise. One of the whales in…
But What Does it Taste Like?
Aloha, Whale milk floating in the water. The theme for Thursday’s Whale Watch Cruises was Mom Humpbacks and their babies. Guests on our Wake Up with the Whales Cruise got to see a dozen different Humpbacks. We spent most of our time watching a mom and her calf calmly surfacing, spouting, and diving. The ocean seemed to…
Male? Female? How Can You Tell?
Aloha, Our Thursday Wake Up with the Whales Cruise was one of those trips that just kept getting better and better. It was pretty windy and bumpy when we first headed out of the bay, but we were seeing splashes from Humpbacks on the surface out near the horizon. Of course with all that wind, traveling…
Whales, Wind, and Peduncles
Aloha, Peduncle Throw – Image courtesy of Jeff McConnel If you’re the kind of person who finds cruising on boats in the wind to be fun and exhilarating (like we tend to be), you would have loved our Wednesday Wake Up with the Whales Cruise. When we got to the beach in the morning and saw the…
How Many Species of Whales?
Aloha, Splash! Tuesday’s Wake Up with the Whales Cruise began with a lot of wind. We were seeing a lot of Humpbacks spouting too, but the wind made it difficult to travel to them. Also, as soon as we’d see these spouts, the whales would disappear — no flukes, or multiple blows from any…
Related to Hippos?
Aloha, Watching Whales Photo Courtesy of Bob and Gail Sims We weren’t very far from the harbor when we saw our first pod of two Humpbacks on our Signature Whale Watch. After they sounded, we didn’t move the boat (though we could see a couple other pods of two spouting in other directions). Patience paid off…
Check out the “Lice”
Aloha, Cyamus boopis – “Whale Lice” There was all sorts of interesting activity to watch during Wednesday’s Wake up with the Whales Cruise. Not only did we see 6 different breeches all about 400 yards away, but we got to watch a competitive pod of 3 charging around on the surface — and we were surprised…
James Bartley – Modern Day Jonah?
Aloha, Well, the winds refused to calm down on Thursday, so we weren’t able to run any of our regular Whale Watch Cruises. Those of you who know me, know that I hate to miss an opportunity to talk about the whales. So instead of leaving you with no report, I’ll share one of my favorite strange Whale-Tales…. In the 1890′s, a whaler with very pale and mottled skin by the name of James Bartley claimed that he had been swallowed by a Sperm Whale. He said that he had been pursuing the whale off the coast of the Falkland Islands when he was thrown from his long boat. After searching for him for a short while, he reported that his shipmates gave up on finding him, presuming he was lost at sea. Two days after he went missing, the…
Humphrey’s Story
Aloha, We didn’t see any Humpbacks on our Tuesday Wake up With the Whales, but we did have a nice morning on the water looking for them! So with no Humpbacks to report about in our waters, here’s an interesting story about a Humpback who went where he wasn’t supposed to be: In 1985, a Humpback whale nicknamed “Humphrey” swam into San Francisco Bay and then up the Sacramento River towards Rio Vista, Ca. After a couple of weeks in fresh water, Humphrey started showing signs of physical stress, turning grey and listless. Researchers and scientists were at a loss on how to help him back to the Pacific Ocean, until an acoustician offered the recordings he had made of Humpback whales feeding as a way to lure Humphrey down the river to the ocean. It worked — Humphrey followed…