Sub Sea Tours Whale Watching
Captain Kevin
9:00 AM Daily Whale Watching tours during school breaks – summer, winter and spring. Schedule varies for the rest of the year, but in general, tours run on weekends and holidays. We'll go Whale Watching any time we have whales, good weather and willing customers. PLEASE CALL for reservations.
Tours run two and a half to three and a half hours.
We also will run an afternoon trip depending on weather and demand. (805) 772-9463
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Whale Log Entries from June & July
by Rouvaishyana, Naturalist and Deckhand Aboard the Dos Osos
Rouvaishyana
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June 8 – After heading nearly nine miles offshore, we found two blue whales, a mother and calf, at about four and a half miles from the harbor entrance. It had taken us three hours to find the whales. Our trips are generally three to three and a half hours, but we didn't want to shortchange anyone, so we asked everyone how they would feel about spending some time with the whales. Naturally everyone wanted to. We stayed with the whales about 45 minutes, then went back to Morro Bay. This trip lasted four and a half hours.
June 9 – Today it was considerably easier to find whales. We saw spouts within an hour of leaving the harbor. The spouts turned out to be a feeding humpback whale about one and three-quarters miles offshore, and we spend the next two hours watching it come to the surface, sometimes with its mouth visible and open. Also a minke whale came by. This species usually doesn't spend much time at the surface, but it added another element to our trip.
June 11 – The boat was full on this day. We saw a few groups of two or three feeding humpback whales at a time. We also saw four blue whales in the same vicinity, and at one point it seemed that the boat was literally surrounded by whales.
On the afternoon trip, we returned to the same area and again saw several humpback and blue whales feeding. The blue whales are so enormous that they appear like surfacing submarines. This was about five and one-half to six miles from shore, too far to be appreciated from land, and in 320-380 ft. of water.
June 15 – We found two humpback whales in about an hour, about the same search time as on June 9. We spent two hours with them, and one whale breached for about ten minutes right before we knew we had to head in. We saw two more humpbacks on the way back to the harbor, but did not stay with them.
June 16 – We did not see whales on this trip, but heard a radio report from another boat captain that there were feeding humpback whales off Cambria — too far for us to go at the speed we travel. It is important to note that even though May to October is the feeding season for humpback whales off the San Luis Obispo County coastline, the whales spread out. On any given day, they may be off Morro Bay or points we can easily reach, or they may be off Pismo Beach or Cambria/San Simeon, well beyond our range. We may hear reports on that day or a later day, but if the whales are out of range, it means that they are present in our county but we won't see them from our boat. We encourage whale watchers to keep trying, as we see whales on about 75-80% of our trips.
Early July 2013
Adam Ortiz, one of the office/dock workers, had planned a week vacation, and asked if I would be the naturalist/deckhand every day during his absence. It was good for me, because I got to see the daily ebb and flow of whale watching, which I normally see only on weekends.
July 1 – There was light chop at the jetty. In a short while, we headed into a fog bank, which usually means cooler temperatures, more wind, and rougher seas. This time everything was the opposite. The air was warmer, there was less wind, and the sea was calmer. As we emerged from the fog near Cayucos we saw some harbor porpoises. There were no whale sightings on this trip.
July 2 – One humpback whale at seven miles from shore in eighty fathoms of water (480 feet!) We also saw harbor porpoises. We really had to travel far to find the whale today!
July 3 – As we left the harbor mouth, hundreds of Brown Pelicans left the jetties and headed seaward. Later we saw the pelicans plunge-diving and feeding, as Western and Heermann's Gulls tried to steal their food. The raucous laughing calls of the Heermann's Gulls carry a surprising distance over the water. On the afternoon trip, there was fog so it was harder to find the whales. The water was flat calm. Our water temperature gauge read 58.5 F. This warmer water could explain the somewhat unusual fog conditions: whereas local ocean fog usually forms from air that is saturated with moisture blowing over colder water, the high water temperature has led to great evaporation, and the fog forms just above it.
July 4 – We saw feeding Brown Pelicans, being harassed by Heermann's Gulls, with a few Western Gulls. Thick fog made it a listening game. The water was flat calm, with temperatures of 59.9 to 60.5 F. We did not find whales, despite stopping to listen seven or eight times. We knew that if visibility were good, it would have relatively easy to find whales, but no such luck.
On the afternoon trip, visibility was better. The fog lifted to high clouds. We saw spouts at 2:10 PM, then it took us another 20 minutes to reach them. We spent an hour and 15 minutes with the whales, much of the time with the engines off, drifting. There were five or six whales. Two pairs repeatedly came close to the boat. One was a repeat from July 3 — it had a white streak on the trailing edge of its dorsal fin, so we called it White Flag. (This name would later be changed.) As we drifted, we played a recording of the sounds of humpback whales, sometimes with music mixed in. With the calm seas, seemingly curious whales, pelicans cruising by, and fantastic lighting conditions, it seemed like the Sea of Paradise.
That night, both of Sub Sea Tours' boats went out on the bay, dropped anchor, and tied together as an observation platform to watch the fireworks. It's often cloudy or foggy on the night of July 4 in Morro Bay, and tonight was no exception. Still, the fireworks lit up the clouds, somewhat like the clouds of interstellar gas and dust photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. When it was time to head back to the dock, the anchor line and chain glowed with the blue sparks of phosphorescence in the water as we pulled up the anchor—more subtle than fireworks but at least as magical.
July 21 – It was foggy or cloudy all day, but we ran three trips because we found humpback whales every time. They were no more than four miles offshore. On each trip, we found the whales through a combination of listening and peering through the fog where it was less dense. The whales were lunge-feeding and showing off in various ways, so it was a great opportunity to see their behavior. On the evening trip, local nature photographer Mike Baird came with a Museum Docent. We had sent text messages with current sightings.
July 26 – The ocean was relatively calm, with just a light surface chop. We began seeing humpback whales within a half-hour of departure on the morning trip. There were five or six present, so we had our choice. At one point, we saw a blue whale ahead of us, but it turned and ran south in a more or less straight line. This species is much faster than our boat, so it simply outran us, but at least we got a glimpse. We were with the humpbacks for two-1/2 hours.
On the afternoon trip, we spotted a pair of humpbacks and stayed with them. There was another pair, and two individual whales farther in the distance, for a total of six. The blue whale was nowhere to be seen, but we had about two hours with the humpbacks. This included seeing some breaching individuals in the distance.
WHALES HO!
Photos of Rouvaishyana Used Courtesy of Mike Baird
Photo of Captain Kevin Used Courtesy of Aprille Lipton |
