Gray whale spotted off Dana Point, the first for this migration season

As if on cue, the season’s first spotting of a gray whale migrating south was made by two Dana Point whale watching charters on Wednesday, Nov. 24, just off Beach Road in Capistrano Beach.

“We do a little contest each year to see who can guess when we’ll spot the first gray whale,” said Donna Kalez, who operates Dana Wharf Sportfishing & Whale Watching. “It’s fun. Today was the day.”

Capt. Steve Burkhalter, a captain for Dana Wharf, first sighted the whale around 11:15 a.m., swimming in shallow water and traveling south. Burkhalter described the 20-foot-long whale as “traveling normally and healthy-looking.”

“It’s super exciting,” Kalez said. “Thanksgiving marks the start of the gray whale season, which is why we coined the phrase ‘Gray Whale Friday,’” for encouraging people to go out on the water as a play on Black Friday, the nation’s largest shopping day. The harbor’s Capt. Dave’s Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari also participates in Gray Whale Friday.

Each year,  gray whales pass the Southern California coast on their annual winter migration from the Bering Sea in Alaska to lagoons off Baja, where they give birth and mate. They then head back north to Alaska with their calves in tow – some traveling more than 12,000 miles during the migration process.

“They’re out by Catalina and then beeline it for the Headlands (a towering rock outcropping just before Dana Point Harbor) and continue their journey down the coast,” Kalez said. Experts say whales use the Headlands as a navigational point.

Even though Burkhalter saw the snorkeling whale first, it was a passenger aboard a Capt. Dave’s whale-watching boat that provided the tip to be on the lookout, said Gisele Anderson, who manages the charter fleet with her husband, Dave Anderson.

“A passenger on our boat told Capt. Gary Brighouse he had seen a gray whale from his hotel window in Laguna Beach earlier Wednesday morning,” Anderson said. “So, Capt. Gary radioed Dave, who was out on the water with a private charter and let him know. And everyone went out looking for it.”

For Gisele Anderson, who with Kalez, recently trademarked Dana Point as the Dolphin and Whale Watching Capital of the World and helped get the city named as the first Whale Heritage Site in North America, the sighting was confirmation for what she and Kalez have always known.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “To be able to have this whale early and a blue whale (spotted off the Headlands on Nov. 20.) so late, it just continues to reinforce that we truly are year-round and that Dana Point really is the Dolphin and Whale Watching Capital of the World.”

A group of volunteers will also soon gather at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center off Palos Verdes to count the gray whales as they pass heading both south and north.

Each year, the American Cetacean Society’s Los Angeles Chapter harnesses volunteers for its Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project, founded by marine biologist Alisa Schulman-Janiger in January 1984.  Volunteers will start their count on Dec. 1.

Because of the pandemic, there has been no count since March 20, 2020, Schulman-Janiger said.