On this trip with Tamalpais Charters we headed west underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, spotting harbor porpoises and some California sea lions. There was a lot of bird activity in the Golden Gate Strait. We spotted elegant terns, common murres, brown pelicans, western, California,  and Heerman’s gulls.

We headed out west towards the north bar. On our way we stopped to look at a young mola mola (ocean sunfish). There were tons of porpoises in this area as well.

As we headed farther west, we spotted a couple of spouts on the horizon. We ended up with a whale on either side of us and were able to spot one fluke dive.

We approached the other of the two whales, whose dorsal fin I recognized as a whale named Akula. Akula appeared to be resting.

She swam in large circles, surfacing every few minutes. At one point she approached the boat within 50 yards. After spending about 40 minutes with these whales we started our journey back to Tiburon, spotting a couple of parasitic jaegers and several types of cormorants along the way.

-Allison

This post was adapted from a blog, read the original here