‘There it is!’

Luis Pena

A hundred visitors came to Crystal Cove on Sunday for chance to watch

the 40-ton gray whales on their migration from Alaska to Baja

California.

This was the fifth annual Gray Whale Sunday, at which the public

can watch the gray whale migration from the Arctic waters of the

Bering and Chuchki seas in Alaska to the much warmer lagoons of Baja

California, said Cathy Renfro, a Crystal Cove State Park docent.

“We do this to educate the public,” Renfro said.

Unlike other whales, gray whales have a blowhole that is shaped

like a heart. At birth, the whales are from 12 to 15 feet long and weigh as much as 2,000 pounds. When the whales become adults, they

can be as long as 50 feet and weigh as much as 40 tons.

The calves drink as much as 50 gallons of milk a day and gain as

much as 70 pounds per day, which they ultimately need to make the

12,000-mile trip to Baja and back, Renfro said.

Unlike a human, which is pregnant for nine months, a whale, which

is also a mammal, is pregnant from 12 to 13 months. They swim to the

warmer and calmer waters of Baja to have their young. The whale will

only give birth to a single calf, said Susan Wilson, a Crystal Cove

State Park docent.

The whales are born dark gray, but when they become adults,

barnacles and lice attach themselves to the whale, forming a

patchy-looking skin.

Because the gray whales were once hunted to extinction to make

glue, oil for lamps, brooms and cosmetics, they are on the Endangered

Species List. The gray whales have made a comeback, though: today,

there are 17,000 gray whales in the wild.

Bob Flyte, a docent with Crystal Cove State Park, said that the

park is a great place to watch whales because for the three months of

the whales’ migrating season, the bluffs offer a good vantage point

for those interested in whale watching.

“Sometimes its more comfortable for people to watch for whales up

here than it is from a boat,” Wilson said.

Whale watchers are told to look out about 500 yards into the ocean

to spot a whale. They are then told to look for its waterspout to

appear, then its back and the whale’s tail flipping up, Wilson said.

“I think a lot of people are spoiled by Sea World,” Wilson said.

“They think they’re just going to walk up and see one, but seeing

them out in the wild is the best.”

Joe Boyer of Irvine was the first person to spot a whale, at 10:30

a.m., winning the “I spied one at Crystal Cove” T-shirt. “There it

is!” he shouted. He was very excited to be able to spot a whale with

his own eyes from land.

“This is a special occasion to come down for the day, enjoy the

weather and spot a whale,” Boyer said.

While looking through a pair of binoculars, Boyer first spotted

what he thought was a log, and then he saw the spout and the tail.

“There’s that saying: A bad day fishing is better than a good day

at work,” Boyer said. “Well, a bad day whale watching is better than

a good day at work, but this was a good day we happened to have

spotted a whale.”

* LUIS PENA is the news assistant and may be reached at (949)

574-4298 or by e-mail at [email protected].