Davey's Locker Whale Watching (May 18th, 2012)

Whale Watching or Watching for Whales?

 California Sea Lion

     Got an e-mail and facebook post from Davey's Locker Whale Watching tours this week talking about how a pod of 7 orca's were spotted in the San Pedro, CA coastal area and that they should be in the Newport Beach area the next day and if you can make it out to go on a tour, you should.  Unfortunately, for me I had to work that day but was still looking at the sighting logs and saw they were still seeing other whales in the area.  Since I have a four day weekend I decided to make a trip down there and see what we could find.  The last couple of trips I have gone on haven't produced much in the way of whales but it is always nice to be out in the sun and on the water.

Pacific Common Dolphin

     So more about today's trip.  Well it started out with promise the sun was shinning, not too much wind, and it was warm.  Then the tour group before us lets us know that they were able to view a couple whales (humpbacks and grey's) which go me excited.  Once we got out past the break water it got a little rough and bumpy.  It didn't take too long for us to come across a couple pods of pacific common dolphin which were very energetic and looking to play in the wake of the boat.  We followed them for a while as we moved up the coast trying to find the whales they had located on the last tour.  By the time we got to the buoy pictured above it was time to head back with no sight of whales.  During the trek up to the buoy I was able to film this little video of the dolphins playing on my phone.  Sound not that great but still amazing to see how fast they can move.

     When we headed back to the south there was still no sight of whales and our time limit out on the water was coming to an end so our captain headed toward the dock.   Then a thought came to mind that these tour should be changed from "whale watching" tours to "watching for whales" tours.  It makes more sense to me because you are out there to see if you can find them which doesn't always happen.  My rationale behind this comes from something my Uncle Lee says about fishing.  Fishing is called fishing because you don't always catch a fish with your pole.  If you did it would be called catching and not fishing.  

     To view a few more images from this trip check out my smugmug gallery Newport Beach Whale Watching May 2012.