Thar They Blow

We got stopped a few years ago off the Embarcadero by both Coast Guard and the SF Police boats. And when we say ‘stopped’, this was with bullhorns blaring and lights flashing. They asked what we were doing. We gestured to a big sloop sailing toward the Bay Bridge and said, “Taking pictures of them. Is there a problem?”

“We had a report that you were harassing a whale out here,” said one of the uniforms.

This was late afternoon on a weekday. A quick scan of the surrounding water revealed the Bay was pretty much a blank slate. The only things on it were us, the two lawmen boats and the ever diminishing speck of our photo subject.

“What whale?” we said.

"Some people ashore reported that there was a whale out here that you were buzzing around it very close and harassing it.”

We tried to explain that we hadn’t seen any whale, and that the buzzing was because we were out trying to, you know, get pictures of that sailboat. See, we’re from a sailing magazine . . . .

Of course, there have been times when we have seen whales in the Bay. One surfaced and blew right next to the photoboat once and scared us half to death. We even spotted Humphrey all those years ago when he first came into the Bay.

Long story short: whales — particularly gray whales, who are currently on their annual migration home to Alaska from Mexico — sometimes come into the Bay for a little while. This happened again just yesterday. If you’re lucky enough to be out on the water and spot a whale, by all means sail over for a closer look. But be advised of the official ‘rules’ of such encounters (as noted by NOAA’s Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary): Don’t get any closer than 300 feet, don’t cut across a whale’s path, and don’t get between a cow and her calf. And for gosh sakes, don’t buzz around and harass one!