One of the major attractions in Dana Point, and the reason we chose it as our base is that they are running some quite successful whale watching operations starting in the harbor. We could likely walk to the harbor in about one hour but we decide to drive as our booked tour leaves early, at 8:30. Finding a parking place is relatively easy and then we check in, board the boat and are on our way.
The first part of the journey is through the calm waters of the harbor. Here the speed is limited and we get the safety instructions while trying to photograph all the gulls and cormorants on the shore. And then we are outside the harbor and the boat is picking up speed and they open up the front area to keep an eye for whales and dolphins.
We claim two good spots at the front of the boat, we will not move from here unless we get frozen by the cold wind or get drenched in water. The views are quite good also of Dana Point and the million dollar homes and resort on the shore.
We continue looking for both whales and dolphins from our vantage point while the experts are even higher up. Nothing is showing and it is already one hour in, will we get lucky or not?
What we see is the ocean extending in front of us, unending and placid, today at least. What we are surprised to see is that the waters are quite dirty around here with quite a bit of trash thrown in the ocean. Not sure if it is a current thing but there were lots of plastic cups and other thrash visible during our two hour tour.
And then it happens, the expert lookout is seeing something and suddenly the boat is picking up even more speed as we make our way to the target area. We wait a bit and then we see the whale ourselves, it is a grey whale migrating south. In fact there are two of them that according to the expert are in their mating “dance”. While most of the time we see only the backs we also see the tail a couple times, yay!
In fact as we follow them, from a distance, for about an hour we get the chance to capture many whale behaviors, like the breathing plume, rolling and even a head once, really cool.
At the end we have a lot of hanger-ons, as we learn this is the only whale sighting in the area and everyone congregates here. Unfortunately there are no dolphins anywhere, this is likely because a pack of orcas has hunted them the previous days, according to the boat experts.
We see also quite a few birds on our trip and towards the end we are taken to see a pod of California Sea Lions resting on a beacon. They are quite fun also to watch as they look quite lazy on land but we know how fast they can be in the water.
Before returning to port they open the two underwater viewing areas which were more for dolphin watching and therefore not really used during this trip. They look cool but quite tight, too bad there were no dolphins around today.
After the tour, and especially as we haven’t eaten before, we are quite hungry. So we buy some cursory lunch from a cafe place near our AirBnB as soon we have to drive to our relative’s friends further north where an additional lunch is promised.
