Humpback Whales and Massive Sea Lion Rafts Near Harbor

The morning trip aboard Sanctuary found action immediately upon exiting the harbor. We encountered a massive aggregation of life, including twenty humpback whales and a raft of approximately 800 California sea lions. The animals were concentrated around several active bait balls, creating an impressive display of surface activity just a short distance from shore.

This type of multi-species feeding frenzy is a hallmark of the Monterey Bay ecosystem. As the whales feed on schools of small fish, sea lions worked the edges of the bait balls, while Brandt’s cormorants and common murres dived from the surface. This concentrated activity allows these predators to efficiently exploit the dense patches of nutrients moving through the bay.

Conditions were windy with a light chop, which can sometimes make spotting more difficult, but the sheer volume of animals made them easy to track. We left the frenzy to go find some other species off shore, but only found a few additional Humpbacks so we stopped again at the frenzy just out side of our port.

It is a reminder that some of the most profound wildlife encounters in the bay happen within sight of the jetties, provided the bait is there to support them.