News from Observation Post #9 Half Moon Bay, California, United States Sherry and the Queen of Hearts crew Reports: April 17: Nothing to report but more wind...lots and lots of wind. The forecast for this weekend is 30 to 40 knots along with combined seas [waves] of 11 to 16 feet. Let's go whale watching---?! I don't think so! We have one more whale watch weekend scheduled (April 26 and 27), and then it's back to fishing for our boats. I'll let you know if there is any good news. April 5: We have two more weekends of whale watching scheduled for April 19-20 and 26-27. Hopefully we'll have a few more reports for you before we turn our attentions back to fishing. March 29-30: The winds off our coastline continued once again this past weekend, cancelling our trips for Sunday, but we were out on Saturday, March 29. Hopes were running low after not spotting any whales during the first two hours of our morning trip, but just a little after noon we found a mother and calf on their northbound trek just off Martins Beach, south of our harbor at Half Moon Bay. With time in the remainder of our trip running short, we followed the pair as long as we could before heading in and doing the turnaround for our afternoon trip. We hoped to connect up with the pair again for our afternoon group, but the winds continued to build, and and no whales were found. March 22-23: After having to cancel the last four weekends due to the winds, we were able to run four whale watching trips March 22-23 and found gray whales on every trip except for one! All of the whales were heading north, and there were quite a few mother and calf duos. March 22 we found whales about 6 miles offshore, and just about everywhere you looked you'd see a blow. At one point there were three boats within a one-mile radius, all watching different groups of whales! That afternoon we found a pair of courting whales just outside the PP Buoy about a mile from the harbor; we followed them for quite a while and then found another group to follow to finish off the trip. March 23 the wind really picked up; it was too rough for us to try to head offshore where we saw so many whales just the day before. We foud only one whale just in the nick of time before we had to throw in the towel late in the afternoon. I sure wish this wind would give us a break, but wind continues to be our biggest enemy this whale-watching season. March 20: Unfortunately a lot of rough ocean weather has forced us to cancel many trips. We are scheduled to run this weekend (March 22-23); hopefully we'll make it out and have a report for you early next week. Trips on February 16, 17 and 18: We scoured the waters outside from our harbor to just about as far north, west and south as we could, and finally on our trip Monday morning Capt. Bob's experienced whale watching eyes spotted the arching back of a gray whale! The whale was a sneaky fellow, barely visible at first. It surely would have been completely missed except for the quick glimpse Bob just happened to see. After figuring out the whale's path and its comfort level with the boat, we were able to follow it on its northbound trek for a majority of our three-hour trip, watching as it did its customary one, two, three blows and fluke pattern. Based on our past 18 years of whale watching out of Half Moon Bay on The Queen of Hearts, it seems this weekend's experiences could be the signal that the majority of the southbound whales have already passed by our area — and the closer, northern return has begun. By the beginning of March we could be in full whale watching swing just off our coastline. The ocean weather forecast is pretty iffy for Saturday, February 23, and, as much as we don't want to, based on what we see we have already canceled our trips for Sunday, February 24. Maybe next week things will calm down again and we'll get a better shot at viewing some more of these magnificent mammals. Even after all these years, we still thoroughly enjoy having the chance to check out these giants in their natural environment.   Half Moon Bay, California (37.50N, -120.40W)