A Gray whale is seen in Dana Point Harbor during Captain Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari in Dana Point, on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. (Photo courtesy dolphin safari.com)
By ERIKA I. RITCHIE | [email protected] | Orange County Register
DANA POINT — A juvenile gray whale that led stand-up paddle boarders, kayakers and the Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol on a goose chase through Dana Point Harbor most of Tuesday, Aug. 8, was finally shooed back out to sea by mid-afternoon, where it was later spotted off Laguna Beach heading north.
“We had our fire boat spraying the surface of the water to create loud splashes and the paddle boarders were hitting the water with their paddles,” said Orange County Sheriff’s Department Harbor Patrol Sgt. John Hollenbeck, about efforts to get the whale back on course. “He led us on a bunch of laps around the harbor.”
Efforts to re-route the whale began around 6:45 a.m. when the wayward mammal was spotted along the docks in Dana Point Harbor’s inner channel by a stand-up paddle boarder who pointed the whale out to Dominic Biagini, an aerial photographer for Capt. Dave’s Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari.