Monterey Bay is one of the only places in the world where whales can be seen year-round. Photo / SeeMonterey.com
Monterey Bay is one of the only places in the world where whales can be seen year-round. Photo / SeeMonterey.com
In between the whale-watching and sightseeing, Brett Atkinson makes like the Monterey Bay marine life and tucks into a delectable menu of seafood.
Seafood's very popular in the Californian port town of Monterey. Tourists visiting the historic destination – Monterey was the capital of Mexican California from 1781 to 1846– crowd into the restaurants lining Fisherman's Wharf, while the early 20th-century legacy of the arrival of Sicilian fishermen lingers in relaxed old-school eateries like Monterey's Fish House.
Seafood's very popular in the Californian port town of Monterey, with tourists pouring into restaurants lining Fisherman's Wharf. Photo / Brett Atkinson
The Monterey Peninsula's wildlife denizens are also pretty keen on a pescatarian diet. Sea otters and California sea lions mooch around the area's rocky tree-fringed shoreline seeking out a fishy feed, while the nutrient-rich waters of the Monterey Submarine Canyon attract whales throughout the year.
Sea otters and California sea lions mooch around the shoreline seeking out a fishy feed. Photo / SeeMonterey.com
Before embarking on a whale-watching experience, and the morning after dinner at the enjoyably kitsch Old Fisherman's Grotto, I first check out Monterey's marine life at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Housed in a former sardine factory on Monterey's Cannery Row - the historic hub of California's fishing industry inspired the novel of the same name by Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck – it's the perfect location to learn more about the region's underwater canyon. Similar to New Zealand's Kaikōura Canyon, this part of the central Californian coast quickly drops away to a depth of over 1km, forming a fertile feeding ground packed with a huge diversity of marine life.
Arrayed across the aquarium's multiple floors, it's soon obvious most of Monterey Bay's species are represented. Evoking lava lamps probably last seen north along Highway 1 in San Francisco's former hippy stronghold of Haight-Ashbury, shape-shifting jellyfish ebb and flow in a neon-backlit tank, while the aquarium's towering three-storey Kelp Forest display is packed with wolf eels, leopard sharks and scores of other species, all patrolling a nine-metre-high tank that's refreshed each minute by almost 8000 litres of seawater. Even bigger is the Open Sea display, the aquarium's largest exhibit, where helter-skelter schools of bonitos and sardines swarm, and sea turtles, stingrays and hammerhead sharks all provide a wildly cinematic backdrop. Outside, in the Great Tide Pool, sea otter pups lie on their backs preening themselves, being readied for reintroduction to the wild, and a brace of nearby viewing platforms include telescopes to make the most of land-based whale-watching.
Check out Monterey's fascinating marine life at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Photo / SeeMonterey.com
Fully up to speed with Monterey's marine wildlife, it's now time to head out to see the bay's cetacean visitors from the water. Strolling past souvenir shops and restaurants filling up for lunch, I board Monterey Bay Whale Watch's Princess Monterey at the northern end of Fisherman's Wharf. In their sales kiosk, trip reports from the last few days indicate the presence of grey whales and dolphins in the bay's deep waters. Come back from April to November, and there's a good chance orca, humpback or leviathan blue whales could be seen, but on a January afternoon, today's focus will probably be on a couple of smaller, but still interesting species.
As we're kept fully informed by the boat's on-board marine biologist, the Princess Monterey eases out of the harbour, passing the more workaday municipal wharf, and entering the open waters of the bay past a malodorous colony of sea lions hanging out on rocks at the end of Monterey's Coast Guard Pier. The lightest of swells and minimal wind make it a perfect day to be on the bay, and soon we're cruising south past the coastal golf courses of Carmel, less than one kilometre offshore, and on the lookout for whales.
The Californian port town of Monterey is a mecca of whales and marine life - and delectable seafood. Photo / SeeMonterey.com
We don't have to wait long, and word soon comes through from another boat of a pod of grey whales also steaming south. Keeping a safely prescribed distance from the whales, we're parked on the ocean side of the pod as they rise and fall through silky northern Pacific waters, descending with a flick of their fluke, before surfacing again and announcing their presence with a shower of spray. It's not the intense spectacle of seeing breaching humpbacks in windy waters off Sydney Harbour or getting up close to bubble-feeding whales in the sheltered waters of Alaska's Glacier Bay, but as a seaborne coda to visiting one of the world's best aquariums, it's still a great morning out. Even if Monterey Bay's visiting dolphins have chosen today not to make an appearance. Maybe they've already had their fill of the town's stellar seafood.
Checklist
When to go: Monterey Bay is one of the only places in the world where whales can be seen year-round. Sea fog occasionally rolls in during summer from July to September, but usually clears by the afternoon.
Keeping up to date: Check out Monterey Bay Whale Watch's website (montereybaywhalewatch.com) and Facebook page (facebook.com/gowhales) for up-to-date reports of Monterey Bay's visiting dolphins and whales.
Various live real-time webcams – including the Kelp Forest, the Open Sea, jellyfish, and the aquarium's otters are online at montereybayaquarium.org.
