The eastern North Pacific gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) population makes annual migrations between the Bering and Chukchi seas near Alaska, where they mate and feed in the summer, and Baja California, Sonora, and Sinaloa in Mexico, where they give birth in winter. Growing to as much as fifty feet in length and weighing up to forty‐five tons when mature, they are among the largest of the cetaceans. From an estimated population of between 76,000 and 118,000 individuals at the onset of commercial whaling, the species had been hunted nearly to global extinction by the early twentieth century. In 1936, gray whales became protected in the United States and, in 1949, were granted protection from commercial hunting by the
International Whaling Commission. The eastern North Pacific population has since recovered from the impacts of whaling and was estimated at about 26,960 individuals in 2016, when it was believed to exist at or near carrying capacity.¹ At 10,000 to 14,000 miles, their migration route is the longest of any mammal and, because their manner of eating tends to keep them near the continental shelf in comparatively shallow water, observing these creatures when they are on the move can be done even from ashore at many well‐known places. Among the best such is Bodega Head,
a promontory on the Pacific coast of California about fifty miles north of San Francisco. My daughter and I decided that this past weekend would be a great time to try to see these magnificent beasts as they swam toward their summer waters, so it was to the village of Bodega Bay
that we traveled, where Bodega Head marks the entrance to its namesake feature.
Not content with the proposition that standing atop Bodega Head would be a fine way to observe passing whales, I hired Bodega Bay Whale Charters to take us offshore and guide a search for them from the water. We met Captain Christian Saturday morning at the Porto Bodega Marina, where he welcomed us aboard his 27‐foot Boston Whaler, The Fillet and Release, and we proceeded under sunny skies toward the world beyond the bay.
As we neared the jetty at the harbor exit to round Bodega Head we passed Campbell Cove, where a seventy‐foot deep, water‐filled pit marks an excavation at the site of a nuclear power plant upon which the Pacific Gas and Electric Company had begun construction in 1961. Just two years earlier the National Park Service had recommended
that the site and its surroundings be set aside because of its rich history and because it is one of the significant biologic areas on the Pacific Coast and warrants preservation from that standpoint alone,
² and, over sixty years later, it seemed inconceivable that any such attempt to locate a massive industrial facility astraddle this rural coastland could have been made. It required local opposition to having a nuclear plant built directly atop the San Andreas Fault, which intersected the pit at Campbell Cove that had been intended
to house the reactor core, to force a halt to construction by October 1963, and in 1964 PG&E abandoned its plan to build the plant. Those successful protests were later described by the official historian of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the birth of the antinuclear movement.³
Bodega Head is one of the three points of the Red Triangle, a major feeding ground for white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias). We had no intention of getting into water where the largest predatory fish in the world may be found (I saw Jaws during its original theatrical release in 1975), but the knowledge that they may have been stalking a meal just out of sight made our foray into the unfamiliar pelagic sphere seem that much more marvelous. For this and other reasons, in 2009, California created Bodega Head State Marine Reserve and Bodega Head State Marine Conservation Area, adjoining marine protected areas encompassing over twenty square miles combined, parts of a statewide network along the coastline from which the taking of all living marine resources is either prohibited (as in the case of the Reserve) or heavily restricted. In 2015, the 1,279 square mile Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary to the northwest of the Golden Gate was expanded north and west of its original boundaries to encompass 3,295 square miles, and changed its name to Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, which, after its expansion, includes the state reserve and conservation areas at Bodega Head, and where open ocean, nearshore tidal flats, rocky intertidal areas, estuarine wetlands, subtidal reefs, and coastal beaches are protected within its boundaries.
In the meanwhile, Captain Christian had been ably describing the natural history of the bay and the landmarks around us, calling our attention to the shore birds and points of interest, and doing a pitch‐perfect job of preparing us to not find whales to observe, as of course their presence is not part of a guaranteed performance. Once past
Bodega Rock we were effectively clear of the bay and in the main of the Pacific Ocean, where we patrolled for about three‐quarters of an hour without making a sighting until Christian gave a jolly shout and, pointing,
slewed the boat. There they were: two gray whales, a mother and her calf, swimming northward, close by and gracefully plunging ahead, the sound of their breathing making almost ordinary the most extraordinary of moments, as the song of a bird accompanies the rising sun. The two would disappear beneath the surface for ten minutes at a time, during which
Christian kept the boat moving along their path while explaining that they were most likely eating during their dives, and then they would emerge nearby for a while before sinking again beneath the waves. We were able to follow the pair using this template as they continued along their way for about four miles before it was time for us to return to shore,
though we would have merrily continued onward.
Lodged once again at the marina, we said goodbye and enthusiastic thanks to Christian and walked over to Ginochio’s Kitchen for lunch and to debrief our morning. Because we had not reached our limit on time spent searching for whales, we next made the short drive to the ocean overlook on Bodega Head and joined the crowd there scanning to the horizon for a glimpse. I saw a couple of distant spouts as we stood there, which, though thrilling, furthered my already considerable satisfaction with having been able to see the gray whales that morning from aboard the platform that Christian had provided. There is little to compare to seeing a whale — titanic denizen of the spellbinding benthic domain — doing whale things from a vantage just a few wave‐tops away.
A trip to Bodega Bay would have not felt complete to us had we not visited at least one of the sites used as a location in the
1963 Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds,
and we culled our options before agreeing that we should see the 1873
Potter Schoolhouse
in nearby Bodega and
the ca. 1860 St. Teresa of Avila Church,
the oldest church in Sonoma County and the subject of the
ca. 1953
Ansel Adams
black and white photograph
Church and Road.
The church can be seen in the movie where it remains today across the street from the schoolhouse, 
so we had a nice stroll of their quiet neighborhood
and visited both places; no feathered menace to be seen. We concluded our homage with a stop at
The Birds Cafe for coffee
back in Bodega Bay,
after which we got ourselves settled in for the end of the day at the
Inn at the Tides,
which climbs the hill above the bay whence it regards Bodega Head. We later cheered our happy day over dinner across the street at
Tides Wharf Restaurant;
an epilogue to our afternoon, as the restaurant is yet another location from the Hitchcock film.
Sunday morning we drove the thirty miles to
Station House Cafe in Point Reyes Station
to be there when the doors opened for brunch. There are good reasons the café has been celebrated locally for six decades, among them the food, which this morning included a serving of its variation on croquettes: crispy warm mac & cheese + shaved & whipped parmesan.
Having eaten them, quoting their menu description just
now has by itself made me crave a plate full of them. Gooey. Savory. Delicious. Perfect.
We had come to Point Reyes because we were hopeful we might have time to climb down the stairs to the lighthouse, and if not, we would at least have treated ourselves to the views from above. It is the windiest place on the Pacific Coast and the second foggiest place in North America, but the weather today was flawless if what one wanted was sunny, warm, and gorgeous. To the north of the lighthouse is the breathtaking Point Reyes Beach seashore, an eleven‐mile strand known as The Great Beach, of sand and surf and grandeur, visible today to a distant point that vanished beneath the salty mist hovering over the edge of the continent. To the south is Drakes Bay, named for the English privateer Francis Drake, who in 1579, while repairing his ship, Golden Hind, camped along its shore with his crew during a voyage that became the second circumnavigation of the globe. We strolled up the path between them to the top of the stairs that led to the lighthouse nine hundred feet down the cliff face but went no further. During the April 18, 1906, San Francisco earthquake, Point Reyes Peninsula and the lighthouse moved north eighteen feet in less than one minute. I had a plane to catch in the afternoon and needed to move myself in the direction of the airport, leaving no time spare to descend the 313 stairs and return.
The road away from the lighthouse traces the shoreline of Tomales Bay for a brief while; a fifteen‐mile‐long, narrow inlet that sits atop the San Andreas Fault and separates the Point Reyes Peninsula from the
mainland of Marin County. Russian settlements in North America reached Tomales Bay after the establishment near Bodega Bay by factors of the tsar of Fortress Ross (Крѣпость Россъ) in 1812. The Russians had come to the area to hunt sea otters and to grow crops for their Alaskan colonies,
and were gone by 1841, the otters having vanished from overhunting and the territorial ambitions of the Russians overmatched by the Spanish and then the independent Mexicans, the British, and the Americans. Of Russia itself at the time, the French author
Astolphe‐Louis‐Léonor, Marquis de Custine, was writing in Saint Petersburg,
This empire, immense as it is, is no more than a prison, of which the emperor keeps the key.
One feels ambivalent about the enterprising souls who had been flung to the far side of the world in thrall to Nicholas Ⅰ. Their abuse of the Indigenous population was no worse than that of any other colonizing power of the time, so their presence cannot be said to have been atypical and was of sufficient influence that its effects linger
two hundred years on (n.b., Russian River in Sonoma and Mendocino counties), while current events in Eastern Europe remind us that the enduring ideology of Russia is one of violence and cruelty, and make us rather glad that they were chased back across the Pacific Ocean in the nineteenth century.
With time expired on another memorable outing, my daughter and I added a new entry to our catalog of wins, put the California coast in the rear view mirror, and made a promise to return. We never do know where our ambitions may guide us, but we do know we are bound to have fun once we arrive.
Update June 1, 2026
The gray whales of the eastern North Pacific have been the subject of an unusual mortality event from 2018 to 2023, during which 690 strandings were recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Investigators have made a preliminary determination of the cause as ecosystem changes in the sub‐Arctic and Arctic feeding areas used
by the whales, leading to changes in food, malnutrition, decreased birth rates, and increased mortality. In April of this year, a juvenile gray whale swam twenty miles up the small freshwater Willapa River in Washington, where it perished, likely from starvation.
As Blaine Harden reported last week in
Inside Climate News,
A surge in malnutrition‐related mortality has cut the eastern North Pacific population of gray whales in half, to about 13,000 last year from about 27,000 in 2016, while reducing calf births by 95 percent, according to
counts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.