Whale Watching

Gray Whale Southbound Migration Transition Begins to Transition to Northbound! Gray whales travel as much as 14,000 miles each year, migrating from their feeding to calving and mating grounds.  The length of the whales’ migration can vary depending on where they begin, as their feeding ground covers hundreds of miles and whether they travel offshore…

Love is in the Air!    Multiple Encounters with Gray Whales Courting, Plus Fin Whales, Minke Whales, Pacific White-Sided Dolphin, Bottlenose Dolphin, Common Dolphin, and several Mola mola! An exceptional experience was watching three gray whales courting, likely mating, with lots of surface activity, including rolling and socializing showing their pectoral fins and flukes.  This spectacular show…

Baja Style Gray Whale Day with 16 Gray Whales, including a cow/calf pair ~ Breaching, Courting, Spy Hopping, Mugging on Every Trip! The day started with a breacher in front of the Dana Point Harbor.  The cloudy skies turned to sunshine; soon after, a cow/calf pair was heading south close to shore.  We were mugged…

Gray Whale, Fin Whales, Minke Whales ~ Bottlenose Dolphin & Common Dolphin Most Gray Whales continue to be northbound, with one juvenile southbound pair observed, and all have been spotted close to shore.  As many as five fin whales at a time have been feeding off our coast from 1 mile to 7 miles out. …

Gray Whale Sightings Continue to Increase, Including Cow/Calf (Mom/Baby) Pairs! Most gray whale cow/calf pairs keep a low profile and are often spotted by the trailing fluke prints while traveling close to the water’s surface.  The calves lift their heads when surfacing alongside mom and sometimes change sides from right to left as they swim…

“Blanco” the Leucistic Risso’s Dolphin, A Rare Bryde’s Whale, Gray Whales, Pacific White-sided Dolphin A nursery pod of Risso’s dolphin, including the leucistic Risso’s named “Blanco” with very distinctive, almost all white coloration and believed to be the only one known off Southern California, was found about 15 miles offshore on our 8-hour Ultimate Whale…

Gray Whale Cow/Calf Pairs, Patches, Dolphin Stampede As we enter the first phase of the Gray Whale Southbound Migration, we see more cow/calf (mom/baby) pairs heading south along our coast, usually in shallower water very close to shore.  Other adults are traveling as singles, pairs, or trios, many consistently fluking, usually traveling at about 3.5…

Welcoming the New Year as New Life Begins!  Birth of a baby Gray Whale Right Outside Dana Point Harbor! This week’s Baja-style encounter with this newborn gray whale calf just minutes old was a great way to begin 2023!  During this incredible ninety-minute encounter, Captain Chase Moore on the Dana Wharf Whale Watch vessel Ocean Adventures…

Happy New Year! The Gray Whale Highway in front of Dana Point Harbor is open! We started the week with Fin whales feeding and ended with Gray whales migrating south very close to shore, often in less than 100 feet of water.  Several of the traveling in groups of one, two, or three seem to stop…

Mega Pod of Common Dolphin Seen for Days! For five consecutive days, we likely saw the same Mega Pod of long-beaked common dolphin numbering in the thousands off our coast.  This pod has been enjoying feeding the bountiful bait fish, which is joined by hundreds of sea lions and various sea birds.  The sheer magnitude…