We had just started on our Farallon Islands trip when we found a Humpback Whale just outside the Golden Gate Bridge. We saw a fluke dive and decided to continue past it to increase our chances of making it to the islands.
There was a southern wind to 10 knots forecasted, but we had pretty much no wind as we headed west. We were able to make good time and covered twenty miles quickly. At one point the captain reported a leatherback turtle, but we were unable to locate it. We did see several large Pacific Sea Nettles. Eight miles from the islands we started to see spouts. There was a group of five humpbacks swimming very close together, surfacing in synchrony. There were a couple of huge spouts from Blue Whales.
At one point, a Fin Whale surfaced 75 yards from us. There was also a large group of common murres in this area, along with other bird species. One of the humpbacks came 50 yards from our boat. It seemed to be on the small side. Most of these whales were not doing fluke dives.
We continued on towards the islands. Observers at the lighthouse informed us that there were orcas near the continental shelf, so we went past the islands and continued five miles past them in search of the orcas. We saw no spouts of any kind, but there were a lot of birds in the area.
A couple more albatrosses were flying near us. We were in 2500 feet of water, with lots of krill. I was surprised that there were absolutely no spouts. We slowly made our way back to the islands, coming around to Mirounga Bay and working our way east. The islands were full of sea lions, murres, cormorants and gulls.
Eventually we started to make our way back towards the Golden Gate. On our way back we had several whale sightings from a distance.
We headed out for our final trip of the day. Passengers spotted a spout underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. It took a while to spout again, but when it did we were able to confirm that it was a gray whale.
There was a huge amount of ship traffic, both inbound and outbound. We observed some harbor seals and harbor porpoises in this spot as well.
Eventually we decided to continue out and find humpbacks. We found three out past Mile Rock, including some familiar flukes.
Two of them were staying pretty close together. The whales were near a big group of cormorants. Near the end of our observation period, a humpback surfaced 75 yards off our port bow and swam to our starboard stern.
-Allison
This post was adapted from a blog, read the original here
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