So we went on a whale watching trip out of Monterey and it began, like most trips in Monterey Bay does, with sightings of sea otters, cormorants and sea lions in the harbor, but we did make a quick detour to see a red footed booby that’s been hanging around the harbor on a person’s yacht, giving great looks.
Once we were out of the harbor, we saw quite a few Risso’s Dolphins, again, a pretty much a staple of the Monterey Bay Area, kind of exploring the area.
Saw some humpback whales, and as I was standing near the front of the ship, I managed to overhear a call that the captain was getting from another vessel, and I thought I heard there were sightings of Baird’s Beaked whales.
Now, knowing what I do of these deep water cetaceans, I was not getting my hopes high, because these whales often pop up for a couple of breaths, dive down, and they’re gone, and next thing you know it you probably won’t be able to see them, but you know, I was still excited at the possibility. So our captain turned around and headed towards where the beaked whales were spotted. And as we were approaching the vicinity, I could see a dorsal fin that I wasn’t quite familiar with, but given that we were headed towards where the other vessels had reported the beaked whales, I had high hopes I was seeing a dorsal fin of a Baird’s beaked whale. So these whales spouted at a good distance from us and went down for their dive. And I thought, Okay, that was, that’s about it, that’s all the view I’ll get of these Baird’s beaked Whale. But, you know, it was pretty exciting, as I had never seen these whales before.
However, 10 minutes later, this pod showed up, and they were pretty much hanging around the area for several hours, to the point that while I was on an eight hour tour, we were able to spend a lot of time with them, even the shorter tours, at various times, were able to come out and see these amazing cetaceans.
So these Baird’s beaked whales hung around the area for several hours, and there was possibly a total of 10 to 15 individuals at one time. And these whales were giving fantastic looks, these pods of beaked whales often spouting fairly close to the boat, even as we remained in neutral.
So as we kind of hung around the Baird’s Beaked whales for, you know, quite some time we were watching them, they were coming up, and then all of a sudden, one had breached a good distance from us. We could tell that was the Baird’s beaked whale. And all of us were just in such awe that, you know, none of us had our cameras ready. And soon after that, it breached again. So not only had we had an amazing encounter, and lengthy encounter with Baird’s beaked whales, you know, this one decided to pop out of the water and give us quite a show.
So quite a memorable and first sighting of Baird’s beaked whales is the first new species I had seen in quite some time.
And I definitely know this is not the kind of sighting you would get of these deep water cetaceans, often, if ever. So it’s definitely a once in a lifetime experience. And every time I look at the photos I managed to get, it was, you know, brings back great memories of that trip. So truly exciting to see Baird’s Beaked whales.
-Patrick
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