Whale watching season is underway in San Diego! Each year, 20,000 eastern gray whales embark on the world's longest mammal migration, a 10,000 mile round trip from their summer home in the Bering Sea to their Baja California calving and mating grounds.
From late December through mid-April, naturists from the Birch Aquarium, home of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, and proud vendors of Whale Tails Tortilla Chips, invite the public to join them on daily excursions to locate the magnificent gray whales. Ocean experts are on board to answer your questions about marine life as they point out not only whales, but seals, dolphins and sea lions.
On the Scripps blog, whale watching coordinator Audrey Evens calls the migration a parade:
...our passengers and naturalists observed gray whale mating behavior, females traveling with calves, breaching (leaping with much of the body out of the water) and spyhopping (raising the head above water to peek around).and Birch Aquarium naturist Elizabeth Argyle explains the gray whales' diving pattern:
During their approximate 5,000-mile southward journey, gray whales demonstrate a unique behavior of 3-5 surface dives followed by a single deeper dive known as a sounding dive. Following each subsequent shallow dive, the whale surfaces and exhales.Daily Flagship–San Diego Harbor Excursions depart at 9:45 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., lasting three and a half hours. Printable $5 discount coupons for the 2013-2014 season are available here.
If you love whale watching as much as we do, contact us and share your stories!
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