The Traveling Widower

Tag: whale-watching

  • A trip to Moss Landing – Whale Snot and Otters

    photo of a sea otter in Elkhorn Slough

    The problem with choosing wildlife photography as a hobby, is that you invest a lot of $$$$ and time in the pursuit of perfection. For humpback photography, you are hoping for spectacular shots of whales flying through air, closeups of their eyes, or group photos of lunge feeding. My dream opportunity would be to photograph them underwater….I’m still working on that one. The problem with going out on most of the commercial tours in Monterey Bay, is that the vast majority of what you’ll see are whales spouting and diving, since they are primarily packing on blubber for their migration to Mexico in the fall. If you are lucky, as I was last April, you might catch them doing all the amazing things you really want to see – breaching, tail slapping, pectoral fin slapping, lunge feeding or coming up to the boat for people watching. That does happen quite a bit. The whales do like to have some fun. But the hit-or-miss opportunities here are one of the reasons why my wife and I started traveling to Maui each spring, to watch and photograph the whales while they are focused on mating rituals.  Everywhere you turn in the waters off of Maui, there are whales flying through the air. Here in California, it’s pure luck. 

    On this particular trip, my luck ran out. There were large pods of whales, gorging on very large “bait balls” of anchovies. There were swarms of sea lions, following the whales as they all gorged on the anchovies. 

    Photo of sea lions in feeding frenzy
    Sea Lion feeding frenzy

    The whales did not have to dive deep, so all you would see are the spouts as they surfaced in the midsts of the sealions, and then a fluke as they dove back down. That gets ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from most of the passengers, but not from semi-serious photographers Iike myself. All told, I probably shot about 25 photos. I usually have a few hundred when the whales are performing ( I can set the camera for 10 frames per second). 

    It was a pleasant afternoon, and definitely a nice distraction to focus on something other than my 50th anniversary. It’s always nice to be out on Monterey Bay on a beautiful sunny day. But a disappointment in terms of photography expectations. I still had high hopes for the next day, which was a pontoon boat tour of Elkhorn Slough. An “Otter Safari”.

    A bit of background if you’ve never heard of Moss Landing or the Elkhorn Slough (pronounced ‘slew’). Moss Landing is a fishing community (I use that term loosely) in between Santa Cruz and Monterey. The harbor is fair sized, filled with lots of commercial and private boats, as well as some large research vessels. The Monterey Aquarium has a research center there. All for a good reason – the harbor entry happens to be at the head of the Monterey Canyon, an underwater version of the Grand Canyon which is a giant smorgasbord of seafood for large marine mammals…like Humpback Whales. Along with a lot of sea lions, killer whales and many kinds of fish, so the harbor is home to a number of eco touring outfits. The harbor is also the entry for a very large marine estuary – the Elkhorn Slough, which is home to a variety of interesting birds, a sheltered resting place for harbor seals, and a feeding ground for sea otters. The slough is protected, accessible only by kayaks and a couple of licensed eco tours, which take groups out in open air, pontoon boats. Nice and comfy. The main channel goes quite a ways inland, surrounded mostly by farm land. And dominated by the giant stacks from a now defunct power plant.

    Photo of the Moss Landing Power Plan stacks
    Stacks for the old power plant

    My wife and I once rented a kayak there and did some exploring up the slough – absolutely beautiful and peaceful. Easy paddling unless a strong tide is coming in or out. There is also a nice protected area by the harbor entry, where the otters used to rest in large clusters (called a raft) – we always made a point of stopping there just to watch the critters rolling around.  

    Jan did all the paddling…I steered and took pictures

    We never considered booking one of the pontoon boat “safari” rides – they just seemed so touristy. I had been planning on renting a kayak to photograph the otters, but was concerned about handling my big camera while I’m paddling around – way too risky. And then a friend told me that the pontoon tours were worth taking – no paddling required, and you have a nice stable platform to take pictures. Sold.

    This was quite a different experience from the whale watch tour I did the day before. The boat holds about 24 people, plus the boat driver and a naturalist. You just sort of step onto the boat, grab a seat on one of the benches, and they take off through the harbor. It’s very informal – the driver and naturalist keep a dialog going throughout the tour, pointing things out, answering questions. You can move around on the boat which was great for photography – unlike the whale tours, you don’t have  people camped out along the railings, blocking the view. There were only 8 passengers so there was plenty of room to move around. I was also able to finally use the fancy monopod I bought a few months ago – there’s too much vibration on the larger whale tour boats, but it was perfect for stabilizing the big lense on the pontoon boat.

    Photo of an Elkhorn Slough pontoon boat

    It was nice taking a slow ride through the harbor – there is lots to see with sea lions camped out on the piers (any any boat they can climb onto), and a good sized colony of cormorants nesting on the old pilings and channel markers. 

    Once we turned into the slough, the driver just wandered back and forth along the main channel, slowing down when we saw anything of interest, which was pretty much all the time. There was an abundance of birds including squadrons of pelicans flying just overhead – not being a birder, I do not recall the names of all the other ones the naturalist spotted. There were harbor seals resting on the shore and best of all….lots of otters. A few photo’s below:

    BTW – if you click on any of the photo’s, you’ll get a full frame expansion. The mother with a very large pup is my favorite.

    The tour was relatively short – only about 90 minutes, but it was well worth it. I finally got to try out the monopod (no hand cramps this time), and learned a few lessons about using the new camera with fast moving, wet objects. Otters are really difficult to get the correct exposure – for one thing, they move around a lot, their fur is shiny when wet, and you wind up with photographs of a mess of wet fur, whiskers and the big webbed paws and feet since they do not hold still too often. I also forgot to reset some of the settings I used for the whale tour. But I still managed a couple of good photos and most important of all, I had fun.

    Here are a couple of links if you are interested in going to Moss Landing for either whale tours or the slough tour:

    My personal favorite for whale tours: https://www.blueoceanwhalewatch.com/
    Elkhorn Slough tour: https://elkhornslough.com/
    General Information: https://elkhornslough.org/

    You can also hike around on some trails and boardwalks, but these all start at the research center, which is only open from Wednesday-Sunday. Darn. Maybe next time.

  • My other hobby – Photography

    Now that I’ve launched this blog, and have actual real viewers and subscribers (amazing), I find myself thinking about new topics to write about during my “in between trip time”, and I came up with one that covers one of the main themes for doing this blog  – photography. Nothing too technical, just how I got into it, and my current kit.

    I’ve always been interested in photography, even as a kid. My parents foolishly let me use their Brownie Instamatic once in a while until they noticed that I would shoot an entire role of film on the same subject…like a statue at the United Nations building. That ended my initial childhood experience. In college, I had a friend who was a very talented photographer, though a little on the strange side when it came to what he photographed and the prints he made in the darkroom. I learned a little bit about SLR cameras and darkroom techniques, but not enough to buy my own camera.

    Fast forward to graduate school i I had another friend who ran the photo lab for the geology department, and once again had the opportunity to learn and maybe try it out on my own. Too bad I didn’t – there were so many opportunities in geology field trips and field camps for photography…like climbing the Grand Teton. One of the students had a camera, and got a classic shot of me, holding on for dear life to a rope to keep from sliding down the Middle Teton Glacier. He was supposed to be holding on to the rope. I think he was hoping to get a sequence of me sliding to my doom. I survived.

    How not to cross a glacier…that’s me It was a very long way down

    Finally, after all these missed opportunities, I had access to a real SLR, and also a Nikon underwater camera. They were not mine though….my soon to be wife owned them, and let me use them. I brought the Nikon along on the summer field camp I was a Teaching Assistant on, and shot a few roles of slides. It was a start.

    Over the years, my wife and I both dabbled in photography. After a rock climbing accident, I began to take it more seriously, at my wife’s urging, in order to keep me off the rocks – I built my own darkroom, joined clubs, went off on wildlife photography trips, and of course, bought a lot of gear, replacing my fixation with rock climbing toys. Those were the days before digital photography and before phones became cameras. I really enjoyed making prints – I still have a few framed ones on the walls of my current abode 

    Once digital photography appeared, and phone photography became common,  we both invested in new technology, each buying new kits based on Nikon. I eventually bought a 500MM telephoto for wildlife photography, which was my focus (no pun intended) for many years. My wife was always more interested in capturing interesting scenes in parks and cities, and sometimes just of people. When Sony started producing high-end digital cameras, we both traded our Nikon gear for Sony, and have stayed with their cameras going forward. 

    So what am I shooting with now? My wife of course had the higher end camera – a Sony A7RII, which has a 44MP sensor, the largest at the time (2016). You can enlarge those photos to wall size. I had an even older model, the A7II, with a 24MP sensor. A good workhorse of a camera. Both were now way behind current technology – so much has changed, including AI features built into the chip. We had a good range of lenses, which we shared – 50-300, 28-105, and a few other lenses, all Sony. When Jan passed, I inherited her A7RII, which became my primary camera body. Most of the pictures I’ve posted in the blog to-date were shot with this camera, except for the last trip. I had been itching to buy a new, longer lens, but being frugal (or cheap) I was holding off on the investment, even after missing lots of good photo opportunities on the Baja trip. That was until the current administration’s Independence Day came along – the potential for a 39% tariff on Japanese products, and a major increase in price made me pull the trigger on buying the new lens, a 100-500MM Tamron telephoto. Very heavy, but manageable. And then after the whale watch trip, I decided to just go ahead and buy a new camera body with superior focusing, the Sony A7IV. The shots it takes were remarkable in clarity…no more wasted slightly out-of-focus shots, and the shutter bursts are 10 frames per second is great for fast moving subjects, like hummingbirds and whales. I used this camera exclusively on my last trip to the Utah parks.

    All my toys

    So unless I win a lottery, this will have to hold me for a while in terms of cameras and lenses. Here’s a picture of the whole kit and kaboodle – I take all of this on some of the trips (Alaska, Galapagos, but have to cut back on other trips based on luggage size and weight restrictions. That’s a lot of weight for carry-on, especially on smaller planes.

    But that’s not all I have to lug around. Some trips/subjects require more stability, like hummingbirds, shore birds, sea otters….and that requires lugging a tripod or monopod along. The tripod only works for car trips – hard to carry that on airplanes, and impossible to use in small boats like the Zodiacs that National Geographic uses. So that’s where the monopod comes in. That was another Independence Day purchase. It’s hard to find any high-end camera gear made in the USA.

    Tripod, monopod (with feet), GoPro extension rod, extension rod with feet

    But wait, there is more! I also have underwater / action cameras. I have a GoPro 13, and a Sealife underwater camera with a frame, a big U/W light, and a large wide angle lens. Unfortunately I no longer need the Sealife since I’m not allowed to Scuba Dive anymore – when your cardiologist says NO, you listen). The GoPro is fine for snorkeling, and is easy to pack.

    What is not in either picture are the batteries and chargers needed for all the cameras. Or SSD drives I bring along to backup the photos. There is just a pile of stuff that you need to pack and haul around for photography. Not complaining…just wishing I had a llama sometimes. I do have some nice photo backpacks…another post will cover that.

    And finally (almost), there is one more camera I use frequently on these trips. It’s a Pixel 8 phone. Before going on the Galapagos Island trip, I watched a video on photography by one of the top National Geographic photographers, giving advice on what to bring on these trips. He said sometimes the best camera is the one that is frequently in your hand. Your phone. He has published many photos from his iPhone. The Geographic photographers on both trips gave lecture on phone photography as well.

    So do you really need all this “stuff”? Depends on how serious you are about photography, and what you intend to do with them. And how much you want to carry this heavy, awkward gear around on trips. My wife gave up on ‘real’ cameras a long time ago, and only used her iPhone. We were going to buy an underwater housing for it, so she could use it diving or snorkeling. For me, it’s my hobby, so I’ll continue to use both. Plus, I like shopping in camera stores and buying new toys. If REI had a camera department, I’d never shop anywhere else other than Whole Foods for groceries. My life would be so much easier.

    So this post has been all about the gear. How do you pack all this stuff for a trip? I’ll get to that in another post.