BLUE WHALES IN THE O.C.
Orange County Whale Watching at its best and BIGGEST!

Background: In the early 1990's Blue Whales began to appear in Northern California, near Monterey and the Farallon Islands. According to the Sightings log at the Monterey Bay Whale Watch company between 1998 and today, they saw as many as 1118 Blue Whales in one 'summer' alone. I say 'summer' because in that year, according to the MBWW log, the Blues arrived in June and were still present (62 sightings)in December! Things have changed since that year. The last great year was in 2004 when they saw 405 whales. Since then, they have become increasingly scarce with just 15 sightings in 2006. Please note: There are still extraordinary sightings of Humpbacks, numerous species of dolphins, sea otters,and even Sperm whales in Monterey, so if you're heading that way, please call our friends at MBWW. They are really great folks and inspired me to begin keeping our own sighting log back in 2002.

Conversely, the sighting of a Blue Whale off the coast of Orange County was a rare event through 2003. In 1999, 2000 and 2001 Capt. Dave's Dolphin Safari only observed about one to three Blue Whale each summer on our three to seven mile trips from Dana Point. Each time it was such an unusual event that it made the five o'clock news. All that began to change in 2003 when we sighted 74 Blues in one summer.

Since then, you can see from the above table things have improved until and that in 2006 we saw a record 440 Blue Whales.

It's been an exciting and historical time for Blue Whale sightings here and after reviewing the sightings for Monterey, we can only assume that we need to enjoy every moment we have because each year is different.

In our opinion, Blue Whales are absolutely beautiful and breathtaking. Unlike the bumpy, barnacled Gray Whale, these magnificent animals have smooth skin, marked only by the remorrah fish that hitch a ride to feed off the krill that spills from their mouths. The coloration is blue to light blue in a beautiful mottling that can be seen when up close. When a Blue whale surfaces and exhales, the sound is unlike anything I've ever heard. As their breath is released at approximately 200 miles an hour and forced through blow holes that have a striking resemblance to our own noses, the water is vaporized, shooting into the air, sometimes as high as 30 feet. The sound seems to thunder, then echo. As their body glides through the water, it seems as if it never end. Then, as a bonus the tail, measuring between 12 and 15 feet wide will sometimes lift into the air, offering a magnificent display. The "oohs" and "aahs" abound. Capt. Dave says, "Bigger than the dinosaurs, bigger than Elvis, the only thing bigger than a Blue Whale is God and you hear Him mentioned a lot when a Blue Whale is around...people are always saying, "Oh, my GOD!""

BLUE WHALE TRIPS

Up until this year, we saw all of the Blue whales on our signature Dolphin & Whale Safari trips. Every journey out of the harbor to go whale watching is an opportunity to see both whales and dolphins and you can see from our sightings log, that we are blessed with a wide variety of animals. To our hardcore enthusiasts, the biggest downside of our regular trips is that they are only two and a half hours long (although if you have been out with us before you know that these can quite often turn into a 3 or 4 hour trip!). We often wondered what it would be like to spend more time with the Blues we saw just a few miles from the harbor. We also often heard from the fishing boats that there were more Blue Whales further out. A five-hour trip blue whale watching trip would give us the time to go farther if we didn't see any whales nearby. So we introduced our Extended Blue Whale Safari Adventure. It's been a big success, both from the perspective that we've seen Blue Whales, on all of them, and from the comments of our guests. Many of those who have come have been with us for our signature trips, and just love it so much, they see more and enjoy the animals for longer. (Each trip has been full though, so I am not getting to go!)

The cost for the trip is $89 for adults and children. While children are always welcome we aren't exactly encouraging children to come, because five hours can be a long time for a child. As parents, you'll have to make the call on that.

We also open the galley for these trips and have sodas, dry snacks and a selection of fresh sandwiches prepared by the Brown Bag company.

Please join us on these wonderful dolphin & whale watching adventures, one of Orange County's best and biggest Adventures for the whole family!