The Thanksgiving holiday weekend was stuffed with excitement, as far as Southern California whale watchers were concerned.
Two types of killer whales—one from the south, the other from the north—were spotted hunting sea lions in what were considered rare sightings.
But the greatest spectacle seems to have involved a juvenile humpback whale that breached 30 times, at one point launching completely out of the water, close to shore off Laguna Beach.
The accompanying photos were captured by Carla Mitroff, a naturalist and photographer, on Saturday morning aboard the Dana Pride, which runs from Dana Wharf Whale Watching in Dana Point. The sequence shows the large cetacean seeming to levitate briefly before re-entry.
Mitroff described the day as “one for the record books” and explained that Capt. Tommy White had been looking for killer whales, or orcas, when the humpback whale breached in front of the 95-foot boat, in about 200 feet of water.
“We kept our cameras ready in case it breached again, and a minute later it did!” Mitroff said. “And again and again … we counted 20 times.”
After the whale took a short break it breached eight more times, then twice more as White began to guide the Dana Pride back to port.
“For one little girl it was the first time she had seen a whale,” Mitroff said. “She called it Harry because all the barnacles hanging from its chin looked like a beard.”
The photos are among several Mitroff, a naturalist with the Orange County chapter of the American Cetacean Society, posted on her Facebook page. Some photos are also posted on the Dana Wharf Whale Watching Facebook page.
Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a Southern California whale researcher, said that while humpback whales are known to breach and sometimes breach multiple times, it’s unusual for one to come completely out of the water, and rare for that event to be captured by a photographer.
Humpback whales have been spotted for several weeks off Dana Point, which also is unusual.
As for the killer whales that were known to be in the area, one group is from Mexico (known as Eastern Tropical Pacific orcas). It was last seen off Santa Barbara in what is believed to be its northernmost known location. These orcas have rarely been documented in U.S. waters.
The other killer whales are transients, more commonly seen off Monterey in Central California.
Before the holiday weekend sightings, transients were last seen off Dana Point in March of 2013, according to Donna Kalez, general manager of Dana Wharf Whale Watching.
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