Hundreds of humpback whales seen in Monterey Bay

Hundreds of humpback and blue whales are feasting on krill in the Monterey Bay. Whale watchers say it’s the highest number of whales they’ve seen in years.

Blue and humpback whales love eating krill and right now there is a lot of krill out in the Monterey Bay because recent heavy winds, but that same wind that is bringing the krill in is also forcing some afternoon whale watching trips to be cancelled.

Hundreds of whales are being spotted in the Monterey Bay.

“We got to watch them for about 45 minutes,” said Sarah Cords, a whale watcher from Minnesota.

Cords she had a blast on her whale watching trip Friday.

“It was really cool to see them in their natural habitat and to see them flip their tails up and to learn a little bit more about them,” said Cords.

Whale watchers say they are seeing are all different types of whales on the bay this summer including humpbacks and even blue whales.

“There are probably 300 whales if you travel for five or more miles,” said Nancy Black, a marine biologist with the Monterey Bay Whale Watching Center

Black says the large number has everything to do with food.

“They are all here because there are massive amount of krill and krill is a small shrimp, but it concentrates in huge masses,” said Black.

According to Black, the reason for krill is because the recent wind has brought in cold, nutrient rich water from the depths of the ocean.

“And because the krill is so bunched up, which is really neat, sometimes we just shut off the engine and we don’t even follow the whales we just sit there and they come up all around us,” said Black.

The wind, however, isn’t all good. It has caused some whale watching companies on the wharf to cancel some of their afternoon trips.

“The waves become much larger, the waves become much closer together and so it is not a very fun ride for most people,” said Kelsey Haynes with Princess Monterey Whale Watching.

Haynes says these heavy winds are actually pretty abnormal too.

“Usually we get our high wind storms in the spring, but for some reason the wind has been picking up and our conditions definitely get kicked up out there.”

The wind doesn’t mean that you can’t go out, it just means that morning trips are often better.
“We didn’t really have high expectations so we were very happy to have been able to see them so close up,” said Cords.