A Couple of Favorite Trip Stories

Carol Keiper, senior Naturalist for SF Bay Whale Watching, sent in reports from a couple of recent trips. Here are a couple of her favorite stories and also some of photographer Ed Estes favorite recent photographs. “A young girl, around 10 years old (wish I knew her name!) came up to me as we were checking everyone in and expressed her wish to see a Brown Pelican on the trip! I replied, sure, no problem, because I knew they were in the area this time of year. We had a great ride out to the Farallon Islands - saw thousands of seabirds - but only ONE pelican! She was nevertheless thrilled.”

“However, we had a nice surprise on our return trip - just as we were approaching the Golden Gate Bridge there were feeding flocks of cormorants and Brown Pelicans - about 10 of the pelicans were plunge diving off the side of the boat - she was beaming with joy and this literally made her whole trip!”

“She was jumping up and down and clapping! This is the first time ever, in my 20+ years of experience as a Naturalist, that one of our young guests expressed such joy with her connection with the natural world via pelicans!”

Also from Carol: “Another first time ever experience for me: trying to find the whales by smelling them!"

“We had thick fog all the way out to the islands. However, there was very little wind and a flat ocean. About half way out we passed through some foul-smelling whale breath! Because the air was so still, the breath of the whales was lingering - so we shut off the engines and dropped the hydrophone, hoping to at least be able to hear the whales (because we couldn't see them!)”

“I'm certain that if we had greater visibility, we would have been able to see them. Well, we didn't hear them - and all I could say was "We know the whales are here, because we can smell them - humpback halitosis!"

“Well - as we approached the islands, the fog lifted and we got our usual spectacular views of the islands and amazing wildlife. The visibility was much better on our return trip and guess what? We were able to see the whales we had smelled earlier!”



Photos by Ed Estes. Text by Kathleen Jacques.