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Friday, July 15, 2016 ~ Sightings this week:
Quite a few Humpback whales over Monterey Canyon … we spotted 2 Blue Whales! … and the Sharks continue to fascinate.
Friday, Jul 8 Sightings: 1 ORCA, 2 WHITE SHARKS, 5 HUMPBACK WHALES, 200 COMMON DOLPHINS
This entry was posted on July 15, 2016 by Ken Stagnaro.
We will beat the lowest advertised whale watching price for any 3+ hours Monterey Bay Whale Watching tour! Use coupon code GPBUSTER to purchase tickets online now for $33.00 each kids/adults.
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CALL (831) 427-0230
Subject to availability ~ Limited Time Offer ~ Restrictions apply
*** Groupon Price Buster rate is not valid Friday March 30, 2018 - Sunday April 8, 2018 ***
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It’s been an active week on Monterey Bay with large groups of humpback whales lunge feeding on schools of anchovies, along with common dolphins, sea lions, birds, and a special encounter with orca! Here’s a recap of this week’s sightings with Santa Cruz Whale Watching tours.
Groups of 8-10 humpback whales lunge feeding repeatedly for over 2 hours! We had a pod of common dolphins mixed in with the whales. The dolphins were swimming with the boat alongside sea lions, and many feeding birds. One of the humpback whales was rolling around in the bait ball, showing off belly and ventral pleats—creases that run vertically down the underside of a whale’s jaw all the way to its stomach. When feeding, the ventral pleats expand like an accordion to accommodate a huge amount of food-rich water.
We found a group of 3-4 humpback whales that were particularly friendly among more whales spread out across the bay. These animals were “lazy” feeding at the surface – one would just poke his snout out with a mouthful of anchovies, then slowing descend back down… We had more common dolphins that stayed with the boat all day! As we were starting to head back to Santa Cruz Harbor, we were intercepted by a single humpback whale doing tail throws and then several minutes of tail slaps!
Oh boy! On Friday there were more humpbacks sighted, “lazy” feeding on the abundant anchovies as before, but today’s whale watchers had a special treat with a group of four Orcas! There were two males accompanying a mother/calf pair. The orcas even spent a few minutes near to the boat, swimming under the boat in clear conditions – you could see them under the water! One passenger reported feeling the spray from their blowhole!
Orca Monterey Bay 8-28-15 | Photo: Michael Nelson
Orca photos courtesy Michael B. Nelson
Don’t Miss the new PBS special “BIG BLUE LIVE” airing Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday on your local PBS station. It’s all about the amazing wildlife and ecosystems of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary that we get to enjoy every day! Tune in then come out with us on our beautiful boat Velocity!
Humpback whale visits passengers on board Velocity, with Santa Cruz Whale Watching
This entry was posted on August 30, 2015 by jennyo
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By Jason Hoppin | [email protected] @scnewsdude on Twitter
Posted: 08/14/2014 04:01:16 PM PDT2 Comments
MOSS LANDING >> The music may have stopped, but the show never really ends.
Humpback whales aren’t getting the same worldwide attention as a few weeks ago, when they practically seemed to be knocking on the doors of beachfront homes. Lunchtime gawkers at the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf got an eyeful, as did visitors to Moss Landing State Beach, where the whales came close enough to shore that they seemed eye-to-eye with beachgoers, including a few confused dogs and horses.
But they’re still out there, in abundance, entertaining visitors from across the globe.
“It was amazing because at one moment you don’t know where to see, there’s a lot to look at,” said Laetitia David, who lives outside Versailles, France, and is touring the western U.S. with her husband, Alain.
The couple took a tour this week with Moss Landing-based Sanctuary Cruises, one of several whale-watching boats operating out of the region that have been teeming with passengers.
The giant schools of anchovies that seem to yawn from shore out to the horizon have dissipated, a phenomenon that drew more whales but that seems to have been punctuated by the unfortunately stinky harbor die-off in Santa Cruz.
There are always more visitors to Monterey Bay, and last weekend Monterey Bay Whale Watch’s posted pictures of killer whales leaping out of the water in its Facebook page. Of course, birds, seals and dolphins can always be found in abundance.
You might even see another rarity of you’re near the water these days – surfers without wetsuits. Water temperatures at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Monterey Bay buoy are in the mid-60s this week, well above normal even for late summer.
And that buoy is 30 miles offshore. Near-shore temps are certain to be higher, all the result of calm skies that have ground to a halt the phenomenon known as upwelling, where winds churn ocean waters, bringing cooler, nutrient-rich deep sea water to the surface.
“It’s just a lack of northwest wind, which gives us upwelling along the coast,” National Weather Service forecaster Steve Anderson said. “The cold water isn’t coming to the surface, which allows the water temperature to warm up.”
The warm water has nothing to do with El Niño, Anderson stressed.
Santa Cruz Whale Watching’s Ken Stagnaro said the lack of upwelling have kept the krill counts low, which could be why there haven’t been reports of blue whales so far.
But Stagnaro said there’s still plenty to see on the water. “We had sightings of killer whales feeding on a sea lion a few days ago,” Stagnaro said.
The show must go on, after all.
SOURCE: Santa Cruz Sentinel
This entry was posted on August 15, 2014 by jennyo
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Maria Grusauskas
Last week, passengers on a Santa Cruz Whale Watching boat (while whale watching in Monterey Bay) got to see a rare and special site: a Pacific leatherback sea turtle feeding on a brown sea nettle, or jelly fish.
According to local marine biologist, Dr. Wallace J Nichols, the leather back in the picture appears to be around 1,000 pounds.
“I’d say it looks like it’s healthy and eating well! The leatherbacks encountered in our bay are usually nice and fat, ready for the long swim back to Indonesia,” said Dr. Nichols.
The leatherbacks seen in local waters travel around 6,000 miles to feed off the coast of California, migrating from Indonesia where they nest.
The chances of seeing the endangered leatherbacks in our backyard may be on the rise in the coming weeks, according to Nichols, who says they typically migrate up the coast during midsummer through fall.
There were other reports last week of leatherback sitings in the waters around Monterey, Moss Landing and Half Moon Bay, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The sea turtles appear to following a bloom of jelly fish, their number one food source, north through the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
“I think that most people don’t realize that we have leatherback turtles in the bay that come from Indonesia, and it’s nice to highlight that,” said Wallace J Nichols, just after seeing the two interactive sea turtle exhibits at Santa Cruz’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary on Monday.
Nichols is on the board of the Turtle Island Restoration Network, an advocacy group working to protect endangered marine life, and he’s also on the board of Save Our Shores, the local nonprofit group largely responsible for getting single use plastic bags banned in the Santa Cruz County.
Plastic bags are known to be regularly injested by sea turtles mistaking them for their favorite food: jellies. In fact its very hard even for a human being to tell the difference between a jelly and a plastic bag floating underwater.
The leatherback turtle has been listed as an endangered species since 1970, and some researchers estimate that their population has declined 95 percent over the last 25 years.
According to researchers at Turtle Island Restoration Network, they could disappear completely in the next 5 – 30 years, even though they have survived unchanged for over 100 million years.
The declining numbers of leatherbacks are largely due to poaching, entanglement in shrimp nets or long line hooks, destruction of nesting beaches, pollution and plastic debris in the ocean. Rising sea levels are also impacting nesting beaches and the food resources of sea turtles, according to researchers at Turtle Island Restoration Network.
Leatherback Photo Credit: John Warren, courtesy of Captain Ken Stagnaro, SantaCruzWhaleWatching.com
This entry was posted in Press Coverage and tagged humpback whales, humpbacks, monterey california whale watching, monterey whale watching, santa cruz on June 14, 2014 by jennyo.
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NOAA marks the best whale watching sites on coast
Monterey Bay topping the list for activity
MONTEREY, Calif. – NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and The Whale Trail announced new coastal sites in California where the public can view orcas and other marine mammals from shore, like the Monterey Bay.
Viewing sites near San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Monterey will be established and outfitted with interpretative signs describing the types of whales and other wildlife that can be seen at each location as well as information about the area’s distinguishing characteristics.
The sites will be added to the Whale Trail website.
The inaugural viewing sites include Point Reyes, Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz, and Point Lobos State Reserve in Monterey County. Additionally, the Crissy Field visitor center for Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s (MBNMS) Exploration Center in Santa Cruz, and MBNMS Coastal Discover Center in San Simeon will also be added to the Whale Trail website as venues where the public can learn about whales and other marine mammals.
This year has been a particularly good one for whale activity, and whale-watching companies say they are doing quite well this year.
Article source: KION 5/46
This entry was posted in Press Coverage and tagged humpback whales monterey, monterey whale watching, santa cruz california on May 13, 2014 by jennyo.
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Sunday March 23,2014: On Sunday Santa Cruz Whale Watching had a rare and very special trip on Monterey Bay! We followed a pair of Humpbacks and a Gray whale swimming together! Our Naturalist had never seen this behavior before. We saw a Humpback breaching! Another rare sight was a “Megapod” of a thousand plus Risso’s dolphins. They were literally stretching out for over a mile! An awesome sight!
Monday March 24, 2014: We were only a 1/2 mile out of Santa Cruz when we spotted our first whale! It was a young gray. We then headed to outer Monterey Bay where we had another incredible encounter with two humpback whales. They got friendly with the boat, swimming right under us while adrift and looking up at the people. We also got to see several breaches and spectacular tail throws!! It was another special day on Monterey Bay!
On Friday March 21, 2014: we enjoyed 5 Gray Whales in Monterey Bay and dozens of Otters in Santa Cruz.
Saturday March 22, 2014: On Saturday we saw a couple of Humpback Whales and a Gray Whale. A wonderful 4 days of Whale Watching on Monterey Bay!!!
This entry was posted in Recent SIghtings and tagged gray whale, gray whales, humpbacks, monterey whale watching on March 25, 2014 by jennyo.
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A few years back we hosted John Blackstone and his CBS News crew on board Velocity. This video features amazing footage of friendly humpback whales curious about our boat and tourists. Captain Ken Stagnaro and our naturalist Maureen Gilbert give us some great insight into the habits of Monterey Bay wildlife.
Humpback whales return each spring to their feeding grounds in Monterey Bay and remain in our local waters through November, sometimes longer! Year-round whale watching tours depart from the Santa Cruz Yacht harbor to see whales, dolphins, seals and otters, and more. As Maureen says, “You are never the same after you see a whale in the wild.”
This entry was posted in Press Coverage and tagged California tours, humpback whales, humpbacks, monterey california whale watching, monterey whale watching, oracs, santa cruz, santa cruz whale watching, whales on March 7, 2014 by jennyo.
November 2013 ABC News story and wonderful footage from one of our sister boats in Monterey Bay. Monterey whale watching at its finest!
This entry was posted on March 7, 2014 by jennyo.
Book your trip today! Book online now or call (831) 427-0230
Any Dollar amount!
For any Stagnaro Trip
Call (831) 427-0230
Gift certificate doesn't guarantee a spot on a specific trip. Reservations required
