It was a typical day for whale watching on Monterey Bay on May 13. The people in the boat had enjoyed seeing humpbacks and being out on the water that morning.
Suddenly, an intern with Monterey Bay Whale Watch and the lead deckhand noticed something else in the distance. Bursting above the water were the recognizable water clouds of whales exhaling. Looking closer, they spotted flukes and dorsal fins that looked nothing like what you’d find on humpbacks’ bodies.
The “mysterious” beings disappeared. The people waited for them to return. Five minutes, 10, 20.
Then, the surface of the water broke. It was a Baird’s beaked whale, one of the rarest whales to see off the California coast.
Excited, the crew steered the boat to where they saw the whale breach, they recounted in a May 14 post on Facebook.
Sure enough, it was the elusive Baird’s beaked whale. And not just one – there was a pod of 10 of them.
Sightings of Baird’s beaked whales are so unusual in northern California, whale watchers will sometimes go years without seeing even one.