They’re Late, but Who’s Complaining?

With a heaving sigh, two plumes of spray shot a dozen feet in the air, forming the shape of a heart.

A barnacled back emerged from the blue water, arched and began to roll back into the ocean followed by an enormous tail. The fluke fanned the air for a long moment before slipping from view. The display brought a chorus of oohs and ahs from a boatload of whale watchers.

It’s prime time again for one of the greatest shows in the marine world: the California gray whale’s migration from its feeding grounds in the frigid Bering Sea to the balmy lagoons of Baja California, where mothers give birth.

The southbound parade of these leviathans is running a bit late this year, scientists and whale watchers note.

The grays seem to be lingering in the nutrient-rich waters of the north, presumably to fatten up before making the round trip of up to 12,000 miles--the longest annual migration of any mammal.

The late migration has been hard on at least one female who bore her calf too soon, about 1,000 miles too soon.

“The mother was swimming beneath the calf, lifting it up to help it breathe,” said Steph Dutton, who owns Sanctuary Cruises in Moss Landing, Calif., with his wife, Heidi Tiura. So far this year, he has spotted four calves born prematurely.

Dutton and Tiura said they watched other pairs that seemed to be struggling through Monterey Bay and yet appeared determined to press on to the warmer, saltier and thus more buoyant waters in Baja California’s lagoons and bays.

The modern saga of the California gray whale has been a success story. Hunted nearly to extinction in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the gray whale has rebounded to a population of about 26,000, according to the last census.

Surviving gray whales inspired an eco-tourism industry. Whale watching originated in California in the 1950s. Now boats depart from nearly every harbor along the state’s 1,100-mile coastline. Many are sportfishing vessels that double as whale-watching boats when fishing is slow.

As an industry, whale watching has been growing about 12% a year and has spread to countries around the globe, according to a report issued last year by the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Counting related travel and lodging revenue, it has become a $1-billion a year industry, attracting 9 million participants in 87 countries and territories, the report says.

California remains an industry leader, attracting tourists from Europe and across the United States to see grays in winter, blues and humpbacks in summer. And Monterey Bay, former home of an old whaling station, is still a favorite site for tracking gray whales as they swim south for the winter and return north in the spring.

“Remember our motto,” Tiura shouts to the passengers. “‘Whales are for lookin’, not for cookin’.”

Unlike the boat owners who move from sportfishing to whale watching, Tiura and Dutton came three years ago from the ranks of whale-loving activists.

They had spent three years following the gray whales in kayaks as naturalists for their own organization, In the Path of Giants. But in 1998, they tried to coax Washington state’s Makah Indian tribe to abandon its plan to resume whale hunting after a 70-year lapse.

They were ordered off the reservation in a controversy that ultimately cost them their research funding. They found themselves trying to scratch out a living in the whale-watching business.

Both of their boats, a 65-foot power catamaran called the Princess of Whales, and the 45-foot Sanctuary, were packed on a recent weekend. Besides the whales, the attraction was a featured speaker, author Dick Russell, who chronicled the clash with the Makah, along with nearly every other struggle over gray whales in his 688-page tome, “Eye of the Whale: Epic Passage from Baja to Siberia.”

Russell talked about Japan’s desire to resume commercial whaling and other threats. “We need to talk to our kids about our incredible oceans and how we need to protect them,” he told the passengers.

Whale watching can be hit or miss. Some days, the creatures seem to surface everywhere, putting on impressive displays, spouting and breaching for the cameras.

Other days they are nowhere to be found. Last Saturday was one of those days. Yet the boat caught up with a pod of perhaps 500 dolphins, all churning up the sea.

At any one time, 100 or more of the two-tone gray and cream dolphins leaped in unison, snatching a breath in midair and plunging back into the sea. Some gamboled ahead of the boat; others hung back and drafted in the boat’s wake.

Sunday was altogether different. The co-captains, who spent years tracking whales in their kayaks, easily guided the boat into the path of the 35-ton mammals.

With Dutton at the helm, Tiura scampered to the highest spot on the boat--the roof of the bridge--to look for whales.

“You are not our passengers, you are our cohorts in adventure,” Dutton told all aboard through the public address system. “So scan the horizon, and if you see a blow, give us a yell.”

It didn’t take long for the shouts to begin. “Straight ahead, 12 o’clock,” Tiura said. Dutton nosed the boat toward a couple of telltale spouts on the horizon.

Soon the boat was surrounded by dozens of whales. Passengers raced from rail to rail, trying to keep up with the sightings.

Carole Adams, a middle-aged woman in a white canvas hat, started jumping. “I get so excited when I see the whales,” she said. She became “addicted” to the big lugs, she said, when she visited San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja and got to kiss a baby gray.

Suddenly, a whale surfaced next to the boat. Both the passengers and the whale seemed surprised. It arched its back and dived, its massive fluke the last thing to slip into the sea.

“If you aren’t getting goose bumps, then you are dead,” Tiura shouted from the roof.

For Tiura and Dutton, whale-watching trips (www.sanctuarycruises.com) are the latest stage of an evolving activism. Now they are building support for the gentle giants, one passenger at a time.

“We just get people out near the grays,” Tiura said, “and then let the magic of the whales do the rest.”