You'd think that joining a whale-watching tour with the specific objective of spotting a blue whale would be a slam dunk success. After all, the blue whale is not just any whale: it's the largest animal that has ever existed in the history of Earth. That's right, it's larger than the brontosaurus and the tyrannosaurus rex and every other dinosaur that ever roamed on land or swam in the sea. So how could you possibly miss one?
Unfortunately all whale species faced the same fate of near extinction due to rampant hunting that lasted well into the first half of the twentieth century. As a result of a global effort to stop the slaughter, many populations have rebounded; today there may be over ten thousand blue whales navigating throughout our planet's oceans. In the eastern Pacific there are over a thousand, at least one of which was my target off the coast of San Diego.
Like many whales, blue whales migrate great distances from feeding grounds in cold waters closer to the poles to breeding grounds in warmer waters as far south as the tropics. However unlike humpbacks and grays, for example, blue whales are often solitary when not in the throws of courtship or rearing their young. It was one of these lone swimmers I hoped to see northeast of Point Loma on a clear August day.
I actually saw several gray whales very recently. These enormous animals spend the summer off Alaska and the winter off Baja California in Mexico. Their annual migrations hug the North American coast and make for easy sightings from not only whale watching charters but also from the shore. On an excursion last January out of San Diego Bay, I took the Hornblower Adventure with a couple of hundred other wildlife lovers to observe southbound whales just a few miles at sea.
The gray whale grows to as long as fifty feet, close to the size of the more numerous humpback whale, but much smaller than the blue whale's almost one hundred feet. But while the gray whale is five times the mass of an African elephant, the blue whale is an astounding forty time the pachyderm's mass! So again I must ask, how could you miss one?
Well, wildlife is fickle and unpredictable, and the ocean is vast and infinitely deep. And right now there are probably fewer eyes triangulating sightings due to COVID-19 restrictions: on my Saturday's outing the boat was probably at thirty percent capacity to guarantee safe passenger spacing.
But a day at sea is never a waste of time for the nature lover. Sea lions, pelicans and gulls joined the many pleasure craft in the busy harbor. Several miles at sea, terns followed the Adventure as we crossed the sea-hugging flight paths of pelagic birds like shearwaters, jaegers, and murrelets. And two species of dolphins, common and botttlenose, entertained us as they hunted and frolicked in our ship's wake.
Fittingly while searching for the largest of our planet's animals we did find another gigantic creature: Earth's largest fish. Actually, the ocean sunfish, or mola mola, is smaller than some sharks like the whale shark and even the giant manta ray, which are all technically fish. But its weight of up to one ton nonetheless ranks it as the sixth largest fish in the world, much bigger than the marlin and the tuna and all the other fish you think of when you imagine the many species breathing through gills and navigating under the seven seas.
The captain of our charter said it's easy to identify an ocean sunfish: look for a large plastic bag drifting by. Sadly, I suspect that there are more and more miss-identifications as mankind manufactures his increasingly un-recyclable and un-compostable garbage. Nevertheless on two occasions we witnessed a bonafide mola mola basking on its side in the sun at the surface of the water. The fish is an oddity for even more reasons: it breaks the water's surface as it swims by, seemingly half-in, half-out of the ocean, and it's got a huge, laterally flattened body that makes it look like a sinking rubber raft.
Alas, my sea outing didn't produce a whale of a tale, the epic blue whale encounter I was hoping for. But a couple of mola molas saved the day with a verifiable fish story. Believe me when I say the fish was this big ... really.
Unfortunately all whale species faced the same fate of near extinction due to rampant hunting that lasted well into the first half of the twentieth century. As a result of a global effort to stop the slaughter, many populations have rebounded; today there may be over ten thousand blue whales navigating throughout our planet's oceans. In the eastern Pacific there are over a thousand, at least one of which was my target off the coast of San Diego.
Like many whales, blue whales migrate great distances from feeding grounds in cold waters closer to the poles to breeding grounds in warmer waters as far south as the tropics. However unlike humpbacks and grays, for example, blue whales are often solitary when not in the throws of courtship or rearing their young. It was one of these lone swimmers I hoped to see northeast of Point Loma on a clear August day.
I actually saw several gray whales very recently. These enormous animals spend the summer off Alaska and the winter off Baja California in Mexico. Their annual migrations hug the North American coast and make for easy sightings from not only whale watching charters but also from the shore. On an excursion last January out of San Diego Bay, I took the Hornblower Adventure with a couple of hundred other wildlife lovers to observe southbound whales just a few miles at sea.
The gray whale grows to as long as fifty feet, close to the size of the more numerous humpback whale, but much smaller than the blue whale's almost one hundred feet. But while the gray whale is five times the mass of an African elephant, the blue whale is an astounding forty time the pachyderm's mass! So again I must ask, how could you miss one?
Well, wildlife is fickle and unpredictable, and the ocean is vast and infinitely deep. And right now there are probably fewer eyes triangulating sightings due to COVID-19 restrictions: on my Saturday's outing the boat was probably at thirty percent capacity to guarantee safe passenger spacing.
But a day at sea is never a waste of time for the nature lover. Sea lions, pelicans and gulls joined the many pleasure craft in the busy harbor. Several miles at sea, terns followed the Adventure as we crossed the sea-hugging flight paths of pelagic birds like shearwaters, jaegers, and murrelets. And two species of dolphins, common and botttlenose, entertained us as they hunted and frolicked in our ship's wake.
Fittingly while searching for the largest of our planet's animals we did find another gigantic creature: Earth's largest fish. Actually, the ocean sunfish, or mola mola, is smaller than some sharks like the whale shark and even the giant manta ray, which are all technically fish. But its weight of up to one ton nonetheless ranks it as the sixth largest fish in the world, much bigger than the marlin and the tuna and all the other fish you think of when you imagine the many species breathing through gills and navigating under the seven seas.
The captain of our charter said it's easy to identify an ocean sunfish: look for a large plastic bag drifting by. Sadly, I suspect that there are more and more miss-identifications as mankind manufactures his increasingly un-recyclable and un-compostable garbage. Nevertheless on two occasions we witnessed a bonafide mola mola basking on its side in the sun at the surface of the water. The fish is an oddity for even more reasons: it breaks the water's surface as it swims by, seemingly half-in, half-out of the ocean, and it's got a huge, laterally flattened body that makes it look like a sinking rubber raft.
Alas, my sea outing didn't produce a whale of a tale, the epic blue whale encounter I was hoping for. But a couple of mola molas saved the day with a verifiable fish story. Believe me when I say the fish was this big ... really.
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| Ocean sunfish, or mola mola, on its side, basking in the sun, off San Diego. |
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| Ocean sunfish, or mola mola, on its side, basking in the sun, off San Diego. |
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| Ocean sunfish, or mola mola, on its side, basking in the sun, off San Diego. |
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| Looking back at Point Loma, in San Diego, heading out to sea in search of a blue whale. |
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| Bottlenose dolphin doing a 'headstand' off San Diego. |
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| Bottlenose dolphins off San Diego. |
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| Type of tern, possibly elegant, following our whale watching charter off San Diego. |
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| Type of shearwater or other pelagic bird off San Diego. |
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| Common dolphins off San Diego. |
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| Common dolphin and her youngster off San Diego. |
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| Sea lion on buoy in San Diego Harbor. |
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