Sunday, March 22, 2009

Thar she blows!

Tim and I headed to downtown San Diego yesterday afternoon to see if we could glimpse Diego, the 30-foot-long yearling gray whale that has been hanging out in the harbor for the last few weeks.
We thought we'd been staring at the water for hours without seeing Diego, but within five minutes of arriving we spotted a plume of spray as the whale broke the surface and curved into a dive. Diego did this repeatedly over the next hour.

If we could see Diego out of the water, he (or she) would look something like this.

I took the pics above with my little Sony digital camera on high zoom. Click any pic to view it larger.
Our location was along Harbor Drive at the Maritime Museum of San Diego, a cluster of historic vessels docked along the water's edge. The spot is marked by the red dot above. Diego was appearing a couple of hundred yards off shore in the area marked by the yellow ellipse.
At least half a dozen boats carrying onlookers circled the area, with some coming precariously close to the whale at times.
Diego has become quite an attraction. The crowd at our spot peaked at around 30 people. There were gasps and shouts - especially from the kids - every time a plume of mist shot into the air. Tim, on the left above, was particularly good at spotting the activity.

The whale was dubbed Diego after The San Diego Union-Tribune polled readers for a name.

Here is some cool aerial video of Diego swimming in the harbor.

No one knows how Diego got separated from his (or her) pod, why he (or she) won't leave the harbor or how long he (or she) will stay.

1 comment:

BarefootCajun said...

Tres cool, brother dear.