What is it about autumn weather and lighting for photography? It must be the fact we don’t have that marine layer, the coastal fog layer, in the Fall. And the light from the sun is at a different, lower angle, and the atmosphere is more clear, without the haze, particularly after the rain we had recently. Today was a stellar day for humpback whales. On our afternoon trip, we saw 6 individual whales, one about 5-miles offshore, a group of two and another group of three a couple of miles further out. We saw breaches from the group of three, probably from the calf, as we noticed a cow-calf pair, or mother and baby. The third whale was likely an escort male, hoping to have the opportunity to mate with the female. Two other whales were in the area. We did see a few dolphins feeding and swimming alongside the whales for a few minutes and a spectacular vertical lunge-feed next to the boat where we had just pointed out a school of fish.
On our sunset trip, we went out to the coordinates where our afternoon trip had last seen the group of three whales. Sure enough, we found them and delighted in how intrepid they were, as they came up really close to our vessel a couple of times. We could see the size difference and had stunning views of the coastline as the whales were moving slowly to the north.
A spectacular “green flash” was seen at sunset as well, around 6:11 PM. The orange colors were delightful and we had a really calm, nice ride into Mission Bay. We heard some of the loud music and colorful lights from the music festival known as Bay Fest. Now is a good time to get out on a boat, the viewing has been terrific of late. —Marine Educator Greg McCormack
