Imagine yourself sitting comfortably, scanning the surrounding waters for fins, spouts, tails, "footprints" and suddenly you spot a pod of 45-foot whales, crossing slowly up ahead of the boat. The Captain gently turns to glide alongside the southbound or northbound whales, keeping far enough away not to interfere with their journey.

As you and the whales move along, one of them raises its' head straight out of the water and looks directly at you and your fellow passengers. Now tell me, who is watching whom? This is called sky hopping and and it is as it appears, a chance to take a look around.

But what's that Gray doing, he has come completely up out of the water, crashing back with a resounding splash that you can hear, even a hundred yards away. Called breaching, whales will do this either as play or a way to clean some of the visiting barnacles and other parasites off of their tremendous backs.

A whale must come to the surface to breath, but it can stay underwater for up to 15 minutes before running out of air. This is called sounding. Upon reaching the surface, air is expelled through the blowholes on the its back near the head, creating a spout.

In addition to gray whales, many other amazing sights could be seen during the trip:

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