Wayward Whale Is Making Waves in Huntington Harbour

Some people spend hours on a boat just to catch one split-second glimpse of a California gray whale. But for more than a week, some Huntington Harbour residents have seen what is believed to be a young gray whale cruising past their boat docks in water no deeper than 20 feet.

“It’s highly unusual,” said longtime Huntington Harbour resident Steve Power, who said he saw the 18-foot whale calf at least four times in the harbor’s main channel Sunday. “It must be lost.”

Power said he first spotted the whale, whose species was taken off the endangered list four years ago, last Monday and again about 10:30 a.m. Sunday. Power said he knew it was a California gray whale after seeing the mammal’s distinctive, grayish-white back.

“It came up to breathe for about seven or eight seconds,” he said. “It sprayed some water, then kind of gently rolled back down into the water. It wasn’t scared or anything.”

The Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol confirmed the whale’s presence in Huntington Beach on Sunday, but Harbor Patrol Sgt. Andy Decker said while “it’s not an everyday occurrence, it’s also not that big of a deal.”

“Every harbor in Orange County has whales,” said Decker, whose office received more than a dozen calls from concerned residents and visitors Sunday. “Sometimes they follow what they’re feeding on right into the harbor.

“If the whale is not in distress, there’s nothing we can do,” he said.

A spokeswoman at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego said it’s against the law for the Harbor Patrol to interfere with the mammals unless they become beached.

Huntington Harbour residents said they’ve never seen a whale in the very narrow, shallow channels near their homes, and said they’re worried that the young gray will have trouble getting back to the ocean. The whale would have to swim through a channel under Pacific Coast Highway--that channel had heavy boat traffic Sunday afternoon--and past the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station depot.

Whale spotter Glenn Caiola said Sunday that his wife, who had tried and failed to see a gray whale in the past, would be jealous because she missed this one. But by Sunday afternoon, Caiola himself was simply finding the whale a nuisance.

“My wife spent days on an expedition a couple of years ago just looking for one,” said Caiola, who has docked his boat in the harbor for nearly 10 years. “Every time I try to get my boat out, up [the whale] goes. [My wife] would be real mad at that.”