Wild pods stalk whale watchers

The MONTE Carlo is only moments out of Los Angeles Harbor when the fog lifts, evaporating the gloom and revealing a spectacular scene.

Between the gray ceiling and the dull green ocean appears a small pod of dolphins, swimming lazily in the distance. The arrival of the vessel, and so many people, catches their attention.

They rush toward the boat and, as they arrive, more dolphins appear off the starboard bow, seemingly eager to greet the visitors.

“I never realized you could see so many of them at once,” says Diane Atencio, a visitor from Santa Fe, N.M.

Up ahead, yet another pod has corralled a large school of bait fish near the surface, providing easy pickings for gulls and pelicans. But these mammals leave the feast to join the party.

Soon, the 75-foot vessel is surrounded by at least 1,000 long-beaked common dolphins. They’re riding the bow waves and surfing the wake, several on each side. Some are leaping free of the water, as if to get a better look at their admirers. Others have brought their young, apparently for the fun of swimming alongside a fast-moving boat.

What a dazzling start for the Floating Fiesta, an annual spring voyage run by the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cetacean Society. The event coincides with the peak period of the northbound migration of California gray whales, but the whales are a no-show so far.

No matter. The whale watchers listen as naturalists identify three warblers fluttering overhead, apparently disoriented in fog and seeking a resting place before they fly to land. They point to a “clepto-parasitic” Jaeger, a gull-like seabird that steals food from other birds, as it streaks across the sky. They spot a northern fulmar as its wings beat hard for land. They explain how common dolphins are often found in large numbers and are recognizable by yellowish stripes on their sides above white bellies.

What they can’t explain is the absence of whales when the animals are expected to be returning to Alaska in great numbers after calving in Baja California’s lagoons. It’s probably just an off day, they say.

On this day, nature is all about smaller cetaceans. As the Monte Carlo approaches Santa Catalina Island, a small pod of Dall’s porpoise surfaces, but they’re timid and want no company.

Yet another encounter with common dolphins leads passengers to dub this “The Day of the Dolphin.” To punctuate the experience, dozens of bottlenose dolphins -- much larger than common dolphins and the kind commonly seen along Southland beaches -- put on a show behind the island.

But soon the excitement ebbs. The sun is shining, but a chilly wind kicks up and the chop is building. The skipper decides to round the east end of the island and begin the long trip to port, but just then comes a shout, “Blow! Blow!” from Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a marine mammal researcher. A whale spouts off the starboard bow. Another blow is seen off the port bow. Then another.

Yet, for the whale-watchers, the sightings are anticlimactic. All they can talk about are the dolphins.

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To e-mail Pete Thomas or read his previous Fair Game columns, go to latimes.com /petethomas.