The bay was packed with boats as we headed around Angel Island, through Raccoon Strait, and towards the Golden Gate Bridge. The Sailing Grand Prix race was happening in the central bay.
When we didn’t find a whale in the bay, we headed offshore. The weather was beautiful. It wasn’t long before we started seeing spouts.
We were just to the north of the shipping lane. We had three humpback whales on this trip, including Gator, a whale we see regularly.
Two of the humpbacks stayed close together, while the other fed a little ways away from them. We were able to smell the humpback breath from over half a mile away.
On our second trip we headed straight offshore to the place where we last saw the whales. The tide had changed and the wind picked up a bit, so it took a little longer on this trip than on the first one.
The whales were in the same spot.
We saw the same three humpbacks close to us, with more spouts off on the horizon.
This time we were able to identify both Gator and Akula.
The whales were definitely feeding and we saw one lunge feed and lots of quick dives. They showed their flukes on about 2/3 of their deeper dives.
-Allison
This post was adapted from a blog, read the original here
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