For Whale & Dolphin Watching cruises in San Diego, Hornblower Cruises offers the best and most professional options. The California Gray whales pass along the coast of San Diego during the south migration to the warm lagoons of Baja Mexico.
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Whale & Dolphin Watching Cruises, click here.
For detailed scientific information about Gray Whales from San Diego Natural History Museum Click Here! The museum's home page is www.sdnhm.org
This whale report documents the activities and successful sightings of whales, dolphins and sea lions on Hornblower Cruises & Events Whale & Dolphin Watching Cruises in partnership with the San Diego Natural History Museum as observed by their trained Naturalists called the "whalers" along with our captains and crew.
Photos by Antonio Ramirez.
3/5/08
As reported by Sheri Knox, San Diego Natural History Museum onboard Whaler and Trained Naturalist.
Hi fellow Whalers!
Just wanted to let you all know what a spectacular day we had out on the water yesterday afternoon! After almost two hours of NOTHING, we spotted about 50 dolphins and 50 sealions out
at 9 mile bank feasting on a bait ball, with a ton of birds.
About 10 minutes later, I had just finished telling someone that we rarely see breaches, when in the distance, we saw TWO INCREDIBLE (nearly all the way out of the water) breaches!!
As we caught up to them, they stayed in their Northern track and
seemed totally unbothered by us -- we were close to 4 of them for about a half hour. A couple of times, three of them surfaced
together and close enough to hear the spouts!
Everyone was so excited and thrilled about the day, it was so fun to
be on board! But that wasn't all! On the way back in, we ran across a swath of sea TEEMING with feeding dolphins (a cowboy said to me it
looked like 40 acres or so of dolphins). I put 800 dolphins in the log, but it could have been nearly double that. Several DOZEN
came to the boat to ride the bow -- it was breathtaking, and, along
with many of the passengers, I nearly burst into tears!
In all my years on the ocean, I have never seen a breaching grey, nor
that many sealions together that far out, nor feeding in conjunction
with dolphins, LET ALONE the incredible mega pod of dolphin. It was
my best day EVER, BY FAR, here off San Diego. And Atonio got GREAT photos of everything! It was FANTASTIC!!
1/26/08
Whales: 14 Grays
Dolphins: Many pods including a pod of 4 or more.
Highlights: in the morning 400-600 Commons
1/25/08
Whales: AM:2 adult Gray Whales and 1 baby
PM: One single adult gray, one mother and calf pair. Nice shows in spite of choppy seas.
2 adult Gray Whales and 1 baby
One mother and calf pair, followed by a single adult gray.
Dolphins: AM: eight Pacific White Sided dolphins
1/24/08
Whales: AM: 5 Gray PM: 2 adult Gray Whales
Hihglights: The whales were spouting all around the boat.
Dolphins: AM: 5 Pacific White Sided Dolphins.
1/23/08
AM: 6 Gray Whales
PM: 4 Gray Whales
1/22/08
AM: 2 adult Gray Whales and 3 babies
PM: 2 mothers with their calves. There was one baby that was by itself, playing and going around going under the boat.
Highlights: 16 Gray Whales
The best record for the season!
1/21/08
Whales: 7 adult Gray Whales and 1 baby
PM: Mother and Calf plus 6 whales
AM: 5 Pacific white sided. pod of 100 common dolphin
Jan. 12, 2008
Whales: We went to kelps and saw 1 whale and around 20 Pacific white sided dolphins.
The whale did show tail and soundings.
In the afternoon we went south and saw mother and baby plus 4 whales for a total of 6 whales.
Also we saw a Mola Mola fish.
Jan. 13, 2008
Highlights: This was the BEST TRIP so far, we went to Kelps and saw nothing so we went to south and saw 2 pods of whales each with 6 whales and we had whales all over the boat.
I was able to snap a picture with 5 whales at the same time.
Whales: total for this trip was 12 whales!
Afternoon trip: 1:30 trip we went south and saw Mother and Baby and a juvenile.
total 3 whales.
Jan. 9, 2008 From a guest onboard the cruise:
The crew was professional and cheerful and accessible. Capt. Bill was a wonderful tour guide: excellent humor, huge expertise, and the visitors experience came first. It was 1/08/08 afternoon tour, sunny and clear. I noticed our boat delivered as promised, in fact travelled further and longer than the other guide boat out there with us which I really appreciated AND we arrived back in port on schedule. We saw two pairs of gray whales that afternoon and a few different pods of two types of dolphins, dozens of CA sea lions and sea and shore birds, the ship was clean and spacious. Appreciated the bar for drinks and snacks. The San Diego Natural History docents provided excellent additional information one on one with visual aids and via the loudspeaker to supplement the tour. Overall, it was much better than I had expected. Most importantly, I felt the crew, especially Bill, respected the fact that that tour may be our first and only whale watching tour even though those guys tour every day. I didn't feel like part of a tourist mill, like cattle. Actually seeing whales not guaranteed, of course made it complete, too.
Be sure to click on PHOTO GALLERY to see some beautiful photographs of the marine life we see each day!
If a whale is not sighted during your cruise, a pass good for a future Whale & Dolphin Watching Cruise midweek or San Diego Harbor Cruise & Sea Lion Adventure will be issued.
3 1/2 HOUR ADVENTURE INCLUDES:
- Fast new whale watching yacht in San Diego with capacity for up to 600 guests
- Bird's eye view from 25 feet off the water
- Climate controlled indoor seating
- 3,000 square feet of outdoor viewing area
- Hot food and complete bar available
- Informative narration on whales and migration
- Views of birds, sea lions and other wildlife
- Educational video documentary
San Diego Whale Watching Tickets Prices, Discounts and Times:
Adults - $30.00 Mon.- Fri. $35.00 Sat. & Sun.
Discounted Senior/Military $25.00 Mon. - Fri. 30.00 Sat. & Sun.
Discounted Children (4-12) $15.00 all week
Boarding times: 15 mins. prior to cruise
Morning: 9:30 am. departure
Afternoon: 1:30 p.m. departure
Tours last 3.5 hours approximately.
Hornblower Cruises and the crew understand that the development of whale watching presents opportunities and challenges to everyone involved. Hornblower has a deep respect for nature, our environment and the animals. We respect our passengers, we assume responsibility during whale watching cruises and pledge to act responsibly. Hornblower follows strict U.S. Coast Guard safety and security requirements on all vessels.
Ocean Ethics Statement
Hornblower Cruises & Events:
Operates the whale watching cruise with a genuine desire to learn more about the marine life.
Please respect the operators' obligation to respect the whales and ensure no harm befalls them or you. Listen to the safety announcements and narration during the cruise.
Become familiar with what may be done on board and what should not be done.
View whales from a safe and respectful distance so that you do not change their behavior. Interfering with critical animal behaviors can cause them considerable distress - if harassment occurs it should be reported to the appropriate authorities.
Err on the side of the whales -- if there is any uncertainty or disagreement about the effect of your presence or your viewing vessel on the whales your operator is obligated to take a precautionary approach.
Be courteous, as you are only one of thousands of tourists visiting this country to view marine life and do not expect special viewing privileges.
January 9, 2008, written by Auliki Karjalainen, the ticket booth manager at Hornblower Cruises.,br>
I went on the afternoon whale watching cruise on Wednesday and it was one of the most beautiful WW cruises I’ve ever been on. The weather was a bit cloudy,but the colors were the ones like calm before the storm with everything was silvery, bluish, grayish and metallic colors. A simply unbelievable day in southern California!
The ocean was flat calm,looking like a mirror! Jeff was the Captain and we went on our adventure with 132 guests.
Captain Jeff traveled Southwest. A passenger found the first whales few miles off Point Loma. It was a great pod of 3 adult and 1 young whale with no barnacles yet. They were really well trained and gave us the most beautiful shows,Ive ever seen. They went down for dive only for 3-4 minutes and gave us the most perfect flukes and spouts almost every time, simultaneously. The passengers were cheering and applauding! We got a special treat during the whale show with a very large sunfish or Mola Mola or AKA dead-shark-carcass. Mola was swimming towards us and we spent a few minutes with it,so that every body can see it too. They are shy fish and normally dive out of the way right away but this one was happily cruising right next to us.
We spent a lot of time with the whales and saw a couple of common dolphins close to us too. Captain Jeff wanted to find more dolphins or other whales too,so we headed back North. Right off Point Loma Captain Jeff found a mother and a baby Gray Whale. The baby was still too small and young to make deep dive,so they both stayed swimming on the surface the whole 20 minutes we spent with them. I was speechless! The whole cruise was just amazing and I’ve gone out on the boats hundreds of times.
We saw sea lions on the buoys, Bottlenosed dolphins were surfing on the wakes of our bow right close to the Submarine base, pelicans were flying and fishing. There was not only a lot of all kind of animal activity,but also plenty of military activity with Coast Guard helicopters were doing smoky drills off Los Coronados, Navy helicopters were flying on missions, Coast Guard boarding a private small craf; Where ever you looked,there was something going on. The spectacular sunset was almost too much at the end of a such an amazing,perfect cruise. It was a natures masterpiece with the unusual storm cloud formations and colors. That view could have made a grown man cry! Of course my camera was at home and it is broken too, but my mind will carry these beautiful pictures with me forever.
Captain Jeff was fantastic the whole time, but so are all of our whale watching captains! I am very proud of them all and could choose the best if I had to. They are all different with their styles, but they all give 110% to make the cruises the best possible!!
