Pod People : Whale Watchers Invade Ocean, Take in Majesty

DANA POINT — David Gerdes scanned the blue Pacific from aboard the yacht Mantis until he saw a “footprint,” a rippled area of water that is the sign of a migrating gray whale.

“I’m amazed at how close to the shore they are,” said Gerdes, 39, of Dana Point, who was on his first whale-watching excursion as the Mantis cruised a mile offshore.

As Gerdes and others on board watched, the large gray whale breached, spouted and then quickly dived, all in one fluid movement.

Cameras clicked. People stood in awe. It was a California moment.

The seasonal migration of the gray whales from Alaska to their nursing grounds in the Baja California lagoons has begun. Off Dana Point Harbor, the Mantis joined a small flotilla that was visited by two migrating whales and a large pod of more than 200 bottlenosed dolphins.

The Pacific gray whale was removed from the endangered species list in 1994 after its numbers increased. It still remains under the jurisdiction of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which bans hunting of gray whales in U.S. waters.

Today, the population of the Pacific gray whale, commonly referred to as the California gray whale, is estimated at between 22,000 and 24,000.

In the 10 years that Ed Fitzgerald has operated whale-watching cruises at Dana Island charters in Dana Point, he has seen as many as seven whales at once off Orange County’s coastline.

“I’ve seen combinations of mothers, babies, and big males,” Fitzgerald said. “But you usually see from one to three whales on each trip.”

The whales’ two- to three-month journey takes them from their feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi seas to the calm, warm lagoons off Mexico, where they bear their young.

This year’s migration was marked by the sighting of a pod of five orcas, or killer whales, on Dec. 26 by whale watchers aboard the commercial boat Sea Horse from Dana Point, about a mile off Laguna Beach.

“Orcas are fairly unusual,” said Linda Cognito from Dana Wharf Sportfishing. “But since we started this season, we have been seeing whales almost every day.”

But bottlenosed dolphins have stolen the show this year, especially those swimming together by the thousands in “super pods,” said Marty Igleheart, assistant manager of Davey’s Locker in Newport Beach.

Aboard the Mantis, skipper Jim Hollywood steered toward one of the giant dolphin pods after learning of its location on the marine radio.

The Mantis headed west, and in a few minutes Hollywood saw what seemed to be whitecaps on the ocean’s surface. As the boat neared, a pod of more than 200 dolphins gave a spectacular show, as some leaped from the water and others rode the boat’s bow.

Marcia Nichols, who arranges charters, has gone on dozens of whale-watching cruises, she said. But the excitement of seeing the behemoths, which can grow to 45 feet long and 45 tons, always returns.

“I gotta tell you that I still get the chills when you spot a whale,” Nichols said. “And, when you see dolphins swimming like this all around you, it’s still exciting to me.”

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California Gray Whale

Common names: California gray whale, Pacific gray whale

Length: Up to 45 feet, 15 feet at birth

Weight: 35 to 45 tons at maturity; about 1 ton at birth

Life span: 30 to 40 years

Spotting whales: First clue is often the spout. When surfacing to breathe, a whale exhales with great force, sending up a 6- to 12-foot spout of warm, condensed air and seawater.

Source: American Cetacean Society