Big show: leaping, spouting whales
Whale breath smells like fermented Brussels sprouts.
When you’re on the sea and pick up a whiff of that unmistakable aroma, even if only for a moment, it can feel like a 110-volt jolt.
It can mean only one thing: They’re close ... real close.
For a few seconds one spring day out of Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay, that smell filled the air around us. We were in a Zodiac inflatable in 60 feet of water off Moss Beach. My fishing partner, Jim McDaniel, turned to me and said, “Do you smell that?”
Before I could answer, a gray whale emerged 30 feet from us, its back jutting through the surface, and then let loose from its blow hole. With a loud whoosh, a misty stream of water rocketed into the air.
The shock of the whale so close — it felt as if he could have capsized us — probably cleared all the cholesterol out of our bloodstreams.
Right on schedule, the whales are back, same time, same place.
On Sunday, people on a three-hour whale watching trip with the Oceanic Society out of Pillar Point Harbor saw eight humpbacks, the 40-footers best known for their spectacular jumps and pirouettes. The weekend before, in two separate trips, nine gray whales, and then seven grays and 20 humpbacks, respectively, were seen.
In one encounter, photographed by naturalist Chris Biertuempfel of the Oceanic Society, a gray whale emerged in a full breach, a rare event for grays, which are far more likely to do a drive-by than a pirouette.
“It was a fantastic day,” Biertuempfel said. “The whales were within a mile of shore. They breached repeatedly. It was a very fortunate day for a photographer.”
The key, he said, “is being out there.”
In Monterey Bay, wildlife watchers are tuned into a phenomenon that often occurs starting in mid-April: Pods of orcas will arrive to hunt gray whale calves. They will often wait along the Submarine Canyon to ambush the whales and try to pry away a calf for a feast.
All along the California coast, the big show is now at hand.
Gray whales, including roughly 1,200 mother whales with calves, are migrating north from Baja California to the Arctic. Near the Bay Area, they often turn inshore along what seems a migratory lane within a few miles of the coast.
At the same time, humpbacks are arriving to feast on schools of small anchovies in the Gulf of the Farallones.
Add the chance of a pod of orcas and you’ve got multiple chances at seeing a spectacle.
It seems the bull’s-eye this month is the same area, where — in our Zodiac — we encountered that gray whale doing a drive-by. The site is within a mile of Moss Beach and Montara, north of Pillar Point, marked by the radar station that looks like a giant golf ball.
The proximity to Pillar Point Harbor has made it a short trip for whale-watching boats. The Oceanic Society offers three-hour trips on weekends out of Pillar Point Harbor for $59. The longrange trips from San Francisco to the Farallon Islands, the best chance to see humpbacks, will start May 6 for $128.
If you want the chance to see whales from shore, there are many good lookouts. Among the best sites are the cliffs near lighthouses at Point Reyes, Montara and Pigeon Point. Scan sections of ocean for what looks like a puff of smoke, that is, the spout of a gray whale. One April day near Pigeon Point, I spotted 100 whale spouts in an hour before we stopped counting. They were all gray whales within a mile or two of shore.
At times, occasional strays can find their way into San Francisco Bay. Last summer had the highest sightings of whales in the bay that many can remember. I saw one myself just south of the Bay Bridge near Treasure Island, and another time, a whale south of Angel Island. There were many such episodes.
If you’re lucky, you might even see a tail salute.
On the briny green, weather is always a wild card. This past week has been rough on the ocean, but the forecast is for improved sea conditions for the weekend.