Whale Watching in Point Reyes

Point Reyes National Seashore is a national park about 1.5 hours north of the bay area peninsula. Its is a massive park, definitely my favorite that is this close. It is billed as the westermost point of continental land anywhere nearby and hence has certain wildlife that can't really be found elsewhere as readily, mainly birds.

This time of year (in general) is the Gray Whale migration. There are several places where one can see the whales from the CA shore (ie: without getting in a boat), but one of the best is probably the Point Reyes lighthouse. Cristin and I stumbled up to Point Reyes one weekend 2 years ago not knowing about the whales and got lucky: the lighthouse had already had dozens of sightings and were seeing another whale every 10-15 minutes. We probable watched whales go by for about an hour if not more. Not close enough to take photos, but definitely close enough to see them. Probably not worth the drive for itself, but Point Reyes is beautiful in it's own right.

I was up there about a month ago looking for whales, but the whales were a little late (or I was early, not sure). I snapped the above photo from the visitor center so I could remember when the peak season was. If anyone is interested in heading up there in about a month at the real peak season, let me know - I'll probably be up there some coming weekend.