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