Take one of these opportunities, narrated by a Scripps naturalist, to view gray whales in the wild as they pass our shores. Your vessel, from the Harbor Excursion fleet, features an open deck for whale watching, a spacious galley, and two restrooms. Cruises depart from Harbor Excursion at San Diego Bay. While swimming, they typically dive to a depth of about 100 feet for three to five minutes, then surface and blow, followed by a series of three to five shallow dives and blows before they dive deeply again. Figuring out the breathing and diving rhythm of a particular whale or pod of whales is the key to successful whale watching.
Gray whales possess a distinctive mottled coloration.
The mottling results from a combination of natural pigmentation and extensive scarring from clusters of barnacles that attach only to gray whales. The barnacles are hitchhikers, and use the whale as a floating platform from which to feed on the plankton in seawater. Gray whales are also infested with thousands of parasitic whale lice, which tend to congregate around open wounds and scars to feed on the whale's skin and damaged tissue.