Whale Watching

Every weekend from the deck of the Dana Pride, we watch the same thing happen. A kid who was quietly scrolling on a phone in the harbor parking lot spots a spout on the horizon, and five minutes later they are pressed against the rail shouting at their parents to come look. That moment is…

Every week, someone calls the wharf and asks us the same question in a slightly different way. “Will I get seasick?” “Do people throw up?” “My wife gets car sick on a straight highway. Can she handle a whale watching trip?” Fair questions. Nobody wants to spend $50 and three hours hanging over a rail,…

If you search “whale watching Orange County,” you’ll get a dozen results telling you roughly the same thing: there are whales off the coast, and you should go see them. But if you’re actually trying to figure out where to go and what you’ll see, those results don’t help much. We’ve been running whale watching…

If you’ve been out on a Dana Wharf whale watching trip, you’ve almost certainly seen California sea lions. They’re the loud, barking, scene-stealing animals piled on our harbor jetty, sprawled across navigational buoys, and sometimes popping up right alongside the boat to see what we’re doing. But every once in a while, a guest will…

It is almost impossible to comprehend the sheer size of a Blue Whale. At over 100 feet long and weighing up to 300,000 pounds, they are the largest animals to have ever lived on Earth. But the most mind-boggling fact about these massive ocean leviathans isn’t just their size—it’s how they fuel it. Every summer,…

Every day at Dana Wharf Whale Watching is an adventure. Seeing a 40-foot migrating Gray Whale or watching a mega-pod of 1,000 Common Dolphins stampede through the water is an experience you never forget. But every so often, the Pacific Ocean decides to really show off. While we have our reliable, year-round residents…

Remember when whale watching meant staring at the horizon for hours, just hoping for a random splash? It used to be a beautiful game of hide-and-seek in a massive ocean. While the ocean is still wild and unpredictable, your trip out of Dana Point—the Dolphin & Whale Watching Capital of the World®—has evolved. Thanks to…

Of all the creatures we search for off the coast of Dana Point, none carries quite the same legendary status as the Sperm Whale. Immortalized as “Moby Dick,” this is the largest toothed predator on the planet. While we see Gray Whales by the thousands and Blue Whales by the hundreds, the Sperm Whale remains…

As we move through the peak of the winter migration, our captains and naturalists are starting to scan the water for something very specific—and very adorable. We are approaching the most heartwarming phase of the Gray Whale season: Cow and Calf Season. While the adult males and females without babies are already starting…

In any other context, getting “mugged” is a bad thing. But in the world of whale watching, it is the absolute dream scenario. If you hear our captain or crew mention that the boat is getting “mugged,” put down your coffee and grab your camera immediately. You are about to experience one of the rarest…