We had beautiful weather on this trip. The seas were flat and visibility was excellent – we were able to see the Farallon Islands in the distance. There was a slight southerly wind, so we decided to head south towards Pacifica. We found two whales northwest of the Pacifica Pier, several miles offshore.
One of the whales was a Humpback and the other was a Gray Whale. It is unusual to see humpbacks and grays traveling so close together. The two whales appeared to be traveling together.
They were surfacing together every 3-5 minutes. The humpback surfaced and fluked more frequently than the gray whale.
A group of birds followed the whales. After nearly twenty minutes of traveling together the whales had moved half a mile north of where we found them.
At this point the humpback started feeding and the gray whale headed east towards the beach.
We stayed with the humpback for a few more minutes, spotting lots of sea lions and porpoises in the area as well.
-Allison
This post was adapted from a blog, read the original here