Whale Migration

April is the month the gray whales stop being a migration and start being a family. The single adults and juveniles have mostly cleared out by now. What is left coming up the coast are mothers and calves, moving slowly, hugging the sand, in no particular hurry to be anywhere. It is also, quietly, the…

By March the gray whales have turned around. The animals passing Dana Point are no longer running south to Baja with somewhere to be. They are coming back up the coast from the calving lagoons, and they are in far less of a hurry about it. That changes what a trip actually looks like from…

There is one month a year when we can leave Dana Point Harbor in the morning, find a gray whale swimming south toward Mexico, and then find another one a few hours later swimming north toward Alaska. That month is February. Most people book a whale watching trip in January because that is when they…

There is a stretch of ocean off the Dana Point Headlands where, on a good January morning, you can watch a heart-shaped blow go up, then another a half mile past it, then a third off the bow, and realize you have lost count of how many gray whales are in your two hours on…

There is a morning every December when someone on the bow yells before the captain does. It is usually a first-timer, they are usually pointing at the wrong patch of water, and about four seconds later a heart-shaped blow goes up right where they were looking. That is a gray whale, and that is December…

Ask anyone at the wharf which month gets slept on, and November comes up fast. The summer crowds have thinned out, the blue whales that made July and August so loud have mostly headed south, and a lot of people just assume the good whale watching is done until the new year. It is not….

One of the questions guests ask most often once a blue whale is alongside the boat is some version of: where does this thing go when summer ends? The whale we’re looking at off Dana Point right now does not stay here. Blue whales move. The ones that show up in the Southern California Bight…

The question lands in our inbox almost every week, especially from people planning their first trip to Southern California. They’ve Googled around, seen tour options in both regions, and want a straight answer: should they drive to San Diego or Dana Point to go whale watching? The straight answer is Dana Point. After twenty-five years…

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…

What Is The Longest Whale Migration The natural world is full of wonders. One of the most awe-inspiring is the longest whale migration. This epic journey is undertaken by the gray whale. Each year, these marine giants travel up to 12,000 miles round-trip. They journey from their feeding grounds in the Arctic to their breeding…