Grey Whales and Porpoises – 12/4/18

This trip had beautiful warm weather. We quickly spotted a spout southeast of Angel Island and another spout further towards the Golden Gate Bridge. We identified them as gray whales.

We moved to the west side of Angel Island, where we watched one of the grays spout without fluking. At one point the gray came within 25 yards of the boat and swam in a circle from our starboard bow to the port stern.

We also had a good sighting of harbor porpoises. There was a group of 5-6 individuals swimming slowly near Angel Island.

We also spotted a variety of seabirds.

By the time we headed out on our next trip the wind had picked up significantly. We went to the Golden Gate Bridge, where it was very rough. We turned around and let the wind and swell push us back towards Angel Island.

We went slowly through Raccoon Straits, hoping to relocate the whales from the last trip. We went all the way around the island and had turned north when I saw a spout off our stern.

We approached and found two gray whales near Alcatraz moving slowly towards Angel Island. There were no flukes and the wind blew spouts away quickly, but we got good views of their bodies.

-Allison

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


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