Chow Time!

I don't think I've ever before witnessed a bonafide humpback whale stampede. Hell, prior to a few Sundays ago I didn't even know such a thing existed! Sure do now, though.

Father's Day 2016 dawned with bright blue skies and nary a puff of wind, the San Francisco Bay a placid, shimmering expanse of gray-green glass in the rising sun. A busy Saturday night at work in the restaurant biz kept me up well past midnight, and it seemed that I had just powered down for some shuteye when the alarm startled me awake at 6:00am. Undeterred and excited (once I remembered why I had set the thing so damned early), I popped outta bed and hopped in the shower, sipped a quick cuppa Peet's Costa Rica and packed up for an 8-hour day on the Mighty Pacific, then walked over to the Marina Safeway for provisions: a coconut-almond Kind Bar (I need more coconut in my life), a hefty, freshly made turkey sando from the deli (delicious), and a bag of dried fruits and nuts (just in case). Out the door and once again toward the bay, at 7:30am sharp I found myself huddled with a group of adventurous, like minded souls by the Saint Francis Yacht Club harbormaster building, listening to our naturalist from Oceanic Society give a detailed introduction on the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, that incredibly productive and thank goodness protected patch of Pacific Ocean outside the Golden Gate. That wonderful watery world I love so much.

Under the GGB on Fathers Day 2016

Five hours later we were twenty-seven miles west of the mainland, hunkered down on board the 56' Salty Lady, and had just finished a somewhat leisurely, closeup look at the craggy, desolate Farallon Islands. I write 'somewhat leisurely' because things had changed quite a bit since we cruised under the bridge; the wind was howling in from the northwest, the sea was choppy with whitecaps, the afternoon swell was building - all of it a typical spring and early summer weather pattern in northern California - and our trusty whale watching boat was a rocking! Captain Roger Thomas, a 40+ year veteran of the bay and beyond, kept us in the lee of the islands, however, where the wind and the waves were a little less fierce. Slowly he motored back and forth from Saddleback Islet to Fisherman's Bay and guano-covered Sugarloaf, allowing us a chance to observe the lay of the land, the thousands and thousands of noisy, nesting seabirds - including several colorful tufted puffins, dont'cha know - the local pinniped population of gregarious, acrobatic California sea lions, homely elephant seals and endangered Stellar sea lions, and one juvenile California gray whale that had decided to linger by the Farallones instead of up in Alaska for the summer.

By this point in the day we had already seen several humpback whales, and the trip was shaping up to be a very good, if very blustery, adventure. Our first whale sighting was a surprise, lunge-feeding adult about 4 miles west of the Golden Gate; a whale we didn't even know was there, but a whale that was astutely predicted by a 12-year old boy standing at the bow of the boat. I was up there with him, searching searching searching for a blow, a fin, anything, when he noticed a mad swirl of seabirds diving into the ocean ahead of us. "Look, dad!" he exclaimed, "There's probably a big school of fish right under those birds, right under the surface."

I swear not 30 seconds later, right in the midst of all those birds, a gargantuan humpback came charging up from the deep, took an enormous gulp of water and whatever food it was hunting, then settled back into the ocean with a misty blow. I turned to Mikayla, a nice young woman from Dallas who was sitting next to me, and said, "I don't know about you but I'm sticking close by the amateur naturalist over there." Kudos, kid!

We were almost to the islands when Salty Lady swung hard starboard and headed south toward another whale watching boat in the distance. Based on the abrupt maneuver I figured our captain had received some good news via radio: good news meaning animals, animals meaning whales, and whales meaning...well, you never know. Ahead we could see spouts  - lots of spouts, and one looked so different, so tall and vertical, I immediately thought (hoped)...blue whale? - and were soon treated to our second closeup encounter, a large humpback that sounded in front of us with a beautiful, broad fluke salute high in the air. Like he usually will when a whale dives nearby, Captain Roger slowed the boat, idled the engine, and waited for the whale to surface. We waited, too, but not for long, as smack dab right in front of us, maybe 75 feet from where we stood on deck, rocking back and forth with the motion of the ocean, the whale rocketed from the water in a full on, super spectacular breach! Amazed, shocked, in awe, hooting and hollering our delight, we waited for the humpback to breach again, as they often do, but this time to no avail. Instead, after a few more looks at some other beautiful humpbacks here and there, we turned north again, straight into the howling wind and waves and swell for a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to the Farallones proper.

Humpback whale fluke.

California and Steller sea lions at the SE Farallones.

Pelicans! And a seagull.

The Farallon Islands, aka the Devil's Teeth, shrouded in fog.

The north Farallones from a previous voyage: the weather and ocean have
to be just right to see these three bumps up close and personal,
so most trips to the islands visit just the main southeast group.

During our close up inspection of the southeast islands, while our naturalist educated us on their history and present day importance,  I continued to see blows south of us, back in the area we had already been, but there seemed to be more and more of them with every passing minute. Apparently captain Roger noticed as well, and before long Salty Lady doubled back for a rendezvous. And in this case, by rendezvous I mean whale stampede.

Sugarloaf Islet on Fathers Day 2016

The southeast Farallon Islands on Fathers Day 2016.

I swear it was like somewhere way up by the north Farallones someone had clanged a cetacean-sized dinner bell and a slew of hungry hungry humpbacks to our south heard the call. For 20 minutes, maybe more, we bobbed about with the wind and waves, scrambled back and forth across the boat in disbelief, as dozens of humpback whales - two, then three, then two more, then three again, then sometimes five or six together - swam around the boat, right under our boat, at times it seemed directly through the boat...and these whales were bustin' a move! We watched fluke after gorgeous fluke as they sounded one after another, glimpsed the occasional pectoral fin above and below the wind-whipped water, saw their bizarre and bumpy snouts as they hightailed it to who knows where, accompanied by blows and trumpets and quivering blubber and stinky whale breath. It was totally awesome! And each time a group passed there were more spouts to our south, heading directly our way.

In my mind I imagined an enormous neon sign suspended in the sky, pointing to the surface of the ocean above the Cordell Banks perhaps. "FREE KRILL! FREE KRILL!" it flashed, as humpback after humpback sped by the Salty Lady in pursuit of food glorious food. And then, lo and behold, amidst all the fantastic commotion, a call I have not (personally) heard out at the Farallones for several years: "Blue whale!"

The GGB, seen heading back in from the Farallones.
"The only thing we guarantee," Captain Roger avows, "is that
we're gonna pass under that bridge twice."

Yup...we were blessed with three different baleen whale species that day - one small gray at the islands, a good look at one gargantuan blue amidst the stampede (possibly two, we couldn't tell for sure), and, oh...I don't know, 50 humpbacks? More? Plus harbor porpoises and harbor seals and sea lions and sea birds by the zillions! It was, in retrospect, a very special day on the Pacific Ocean, in the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. A windy and wild day for sure - several trips have been cancelled this year due to weather - but a beautiful, glorious and very memorable one to boot.

See ya' next time, landlubbers!
Peter J. Palmer

Dietary Concerns

"It's a bad day to be a krill."

Thus spoke Giancarlo, our naturalist onboard the Sanctuary, as he gazed down upon the surface of Monterey Bay from his perch atop the wheelhouse, as my fellow passengers and I watched a pair of 45-foot long adult humpback whales sink back into the briny depths, as thousands upon thousands of teeny-weenie marine crustaceans became lunch in one gargantuan gulp. Make that two gargantuan gulps.

Hello again, landlubbers. Meet krill.

I've only one picture to post - the above - and it's stolen from the National Geographic website, as is the text below. Hope they don't mind.

"The lowly krill averages only about two inches (five centimeters) in length, but it represents a giant-sized link in the global food chain. These small, shrimp-like crustaceans are essentially the fuel that runs the engine of the Earth’s marine ecosystems. Krill feed on phytoplankton, microscopic, single-celled plants that drift near the ocean’s surface and live off carbon dioxide and the sun’s rays. They in turn are the main staple in the diets of literally hundreds of different animals, from fish, to birds, to baleen whales."

Okay, back live.

In my quarter century - and counting - of avid Pacific Ocean whale watching I'd only ever seen krill as a Show and Tell curiosity, usually a few utterly dead individuals in a small glass jar on a boat out past the Farallon Islands, 26 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge. But a few weeks ago, on Wednesday April 30, 2014, to be exact, I saw krill by golly - a whole lotta lotta krill - on the surface of Monterey Bay. Buckets and buckets of live, active krill that tainted the water a brick-ish red color, that you could actually see in the sea (what those in the know call a "surface bloom"). Surrounding our boat the Sanctuary and swimming frantically, their little shrimp-like legs paddling overtime to navigate the ocean currents and collect tasty phytoplankton; even more importantly, perhaps, to escape the massive cetacean maw that might soon become their final destiny.

Because humpbacks were on the prowl. Hungry hungry humpbacks.

From the boat we could see a half dozen or so misty spouts in the distance, but we paid them little heed. Our eyes were instead trained on two hefty whales that were much closer; casually going about their leviathan lives, casually lunge-feeding on the blooms of krill as if we weren't even there. It was so cool. And rare, as krill usually spends the daylight hours submerged, which means most baleen whale feeding happens below the surface as well, unseen by humans, during dives that can last many, many minutes. I'd only even witnessed surface lunge-feeding once before, again out past the Farallon Islands, and I remember the spectacle to this day.

For an hour we watched one of the largest creatures in the ocean feast upon one of the smallest, gazed in awe as the two big humps (40 tons a piece?) performed a slo-mo aquatic ballet of startling precision and beauty; working in unison, using their exhaled bubbles to corral the krill into a tight knot on the surface, then lunge up at the mass from below, baleen-fringed mouths agape, for the kind of mouthful your mother always told you not to take. Over and over the pair kept at it - surfacing port side then starboard, a ways off the bow and then aft, their appearance always preceded by that strategic eruption of bubbles - intent only on Food Glorious Food! Even more memorably, a few times the whales popped up maybe 10 feet from the boat (surprise surprise!), so incredibly close we could see inside their mouths and watch individual krill, a whole lot of individual and panicked krill, do their acrobatic best to jump the hell out of harm's way and live another day.

By the way…humpback whales will gorge themselves on krill when it's around, sure, but they will hunt anchovies and other small fish as well. You know what pretty much eats krill and only krill? That would be the blue whale, which can reach lengths of 100 feet and weigh 120 tons, and is the largest animal to ever roam Planet Earth.  Crazy stuff, eh?

Point of this brief post is to bring to your attention the wee but mighty krill - Ocean Superstar Extraordinaire! - but also to let you know that it's once again going OFF in Monterey Bay (because of said krill), and if this year is anything like 2013 the aquatic shenanigans will continue straight thru October. I've been out on the water three times in the past couple months, and each trip has been so worth it. Worth the time to drive down and back from San Francisco (very pretty, both ways), the expense (cheap thrill, overall), the planning (usually last minute for me). So if you're into whales and other marine creatures get your ass to Monterey Bay and get out on the water with Sanctuary Cruises Whale Watching. Pronto! Tell 'em Pete sent you.

Hell...call me and let's drive down together. I can tell 'em in person. Plus, it'll give me the chance to remind Giancarlo that I still need to sample some freshly netted specimens, because, along with the memorable one-liner at the beginning of this post, I believe he also thus spoke: "Yup, krill is delicious."

Whale watching and a daily dose of heart-healthy Omega-3 fatty acids?
Sign me up!
Peter J. Palmer