Gray Whales SF Bay 4/1/25 Part1
Alternate title “David sometimes can be stupid”. I was up at Fort Mason again hoping to get some more photos of the Gray Whales in the San Francisco Bay. The weather was a bit of a challenge with sudden downpours, strong winds, and occasionally very strong winds. I did end up seeing at least three and possibly four Gray whales. After a few hours a couple of them seemed to be spending most of their time around Wave Organ (between Chrissy Field and Marina Green). I even sent updates to the forum and the facebook group saying if someone was at Wave Organ, they’d be getting one heck of a show. But for a variety of reasons I was reluctant to relocate. Part of it was inertia - when I got to Fort Mason, I don’t pack light - I had my wagon loaded with stuff, my tripod set up, etc. And I hadn’t been to Wave Organ so I wasn’t sure what the parking and logistics were. Side-note, as it turns out, after I finally went to Wave Organ I realized I had been there before many years ago.
Anyway, when it finally got to the end of the day, Andrew - another whale spotter who had been at Fort Mason with me for a bit and who went over to Wave Organ earlier - returned. He let me know there was reasonable parking and confirmed what I was watching from Fort Mason - that the whales were very close to Wave Organ. So I figured I’d head over there. At the very least I could scope it out for next time. As soon as I got there a whale popped up barely 40 yards away. And shortly after that another one popped up. And then I got these headshots, beautifully illuminated by the setting sun. I stayed there until it was too dark to shoot any more. And it’s not an exaggeration when I say that I was briefly wondering if I needed to disable my focus limiter which prevents trying to focus less than 30 feet away. Of course they weren’t quite that close, but they were close enough that the thought popped into my head. I really wish I had just moved when I noticed that they seemed to be hanging out around there.
I’m just posting these two headshots now. I’ll have more later after I sort and process.
