Best Blue Whale Show of 2011 Off Long Beach

There were no flukes, no breaching whales, no blows, yet Captain Chris Batts on the Two Harbors out of Harbor Breeze Cruises in Long Beach knew he was close. Hundreds of sea birds were picking at the ocean's surface below on Sunday where huge orange swirls of krill had accumulated. Batts instinctively pulled back on the throttles and brought the whale watching vessel to a stop.

Then two massive blue whales surfaced and blew off the stern. The whale watching catamaran Christopher was there also as more blue whales started to come to the surface, showing their massive flukes before making another deep dive. Batts now counted a dozen leviathans around the two boats -- only five miles from Long Beach Harbor.

It’s ironic that the largest creature to ever inhabit the face of the earth feeds on tiny shrimp-like creatures called krill. A single adult can eat up to 8,000 pounds of krill a day. “That’s why they are here,” said Batts. “There is plenty of feed here to keep them fat, happy and not going too far.”

The evening whale-watch trippers on the Dana Pride only took a few minutes to find their first blue whale on Saturday. Before long, that single whale turned into five.

“On Friday we actually found a whale outside the harbor heading south, said Donna Kalez from Dana Wharf Whale Watching.

“Amazing stuff.”

The Dana Pride followed and continued south to meet more whales, totaling four blue whales, Kalez said.

Blue whales remain an enigma.

It is believed that blue whales give birth to their young in the Costa Rica Dome. Females are pregnant for about a year before giving birth to a calf that weighs between 5,000 and 6,000 pounds. A nursing blue whale mother produces around 50 gallons of milk per day, resulting in their calves gaining about 10 pounds per hour.

In 1931, 29,649 blue whales were killed by whale hunters.

By 1966, blues were so scarce that the International Whaling Commission declared them protected throughout the world.

Today there are between 8,000 and 9,000 blue whales in the oceans, and they are considered an endangered species.

A few more incredible blue whale facts by Neatorama.com::

Blue whales can grow up to 100 feet in length; that’s longer than an NBA basketball court.

Blue whales can weigh up to 200 tons; that’s about eight DC-9 airplanes.

A blue whale heart weighs close to 2,000 pounds and its heartbeat can be detected from two miles away.

Human beings can easily crawl through blue whales major arteries.

The spray from a blue whales’ blowhole is as tall as a three story building.

More blue whales were also being sighted off Corona del Mar, Newport Beach and in the Santa Monica Bay, where the Voyager has been encountering multiple blue whales on most days. There were also Sunday sightings off La Jolla, Baja, San Clemente and Oceanside.

On the afternoon trip out of Harbor Breeze Cruises Batts returned to the same area where he had seen so many whales earlier in the day. He wasn’t disappointed. First he came upon a mother and calf. Then he found two fin whales know as the “greyhounds of the sea” as they are able to reach speeds of up to 23 mph.

At least a dozen of the gentle giants were surrounding the Two Harbors and Christopher. “This is the best whale watching of the year,” said Batts. ‘You owe it to yourself and your kids to come out and see this.”