Oregon Whale Watching Tours

The Whales Tail is dedicated to ensuring that your time spent whale watching with us is the highlight of your vacation. The Whales Tail provides passengers with the adventure of a lifetime through excellent customer service, seamanship, first class vessel, and highest possible safety standards. So sit back and enjoy as we take you on the ultimate whale watching adventure!

From there we will spend the next 1 to 1 1/2 hours familiarizing and educating you on not just whales but the entire marine eco-system. We take the time to show you all of the wonders of the sea and ensure that your trip is not only exhilarating but also educational. While we journey out to find the whales, you’ll have the opportunity to see a diverse marine ecosystem, including harbor porpoises, sea lions, bald eagles, seals and sea otters.

Available: March through October
The first and original zodiac style whale watching in Depoe Bay aboard the Whales Tail.
Book Online to maximize your chances of getting the day and time you prefer. Visit our website for more information about Whales, FAQ's, Photos.

Daily Trip Times
8:00am / 10:00am / 12:00pm / 2:00pm / 4:00pm

Trip Rates
1 hr. $30.00
1 1/2 hr. $40.00

Whale's Tail Charters
80 S. Hwy 101
Depoe Bay, Oregon 97341
Phone: 541.921.1323

Gray Whales, What do they Eat

Gray whales are opportunistic feeders, which means they will eat food from a wide range of sources. Along the coast of Depoe Bay, Oregon, it appears they feed on mysid shrimp found at the edge of kelp beds. Billions of mysids are found in the waters off Depoe Bay. In the Bering and Chukchi Seas in Alaska, they feed on bottom sediments packed with amphipods.

There have been studies that have shown that prey items included anphipods, crab larvae, krill, ghost shrimp, pelagic red crabs, skeleton shrimp, mysids, small fish, polychaete worms and other organisms.

How They Eat:
Gray whales are baleen whales and they are in the Mysticeti category which means moustache whale. In place of teeth on the upper jaw, the Mysticetes have a series of overlapping plates made of keratin its the same substance as your fingernails. The inner margin of each plate, next to the tongue, is fringed with bristles that trap organisms but still allows water to pass through.

Feeding:
Hanging from the top jaw of a gray whale are blonde colored baleen plates about one foot long. The inside edges of these plates have bristles which trap food organisms like mysid shrimp or crab larvae. Like all baleen whales, gray whales draw in food-laden sea water and push it through the baleen plates, filtering out food with the bristles.

Heres how it works:
The gray whale depresses its 2000 pound tongue. This forms a suction and a piston that brings in water and small food items. Once the food-laden water is inside the mouth, the tongue is lifted up and the mysids become trapped on the inside edges of the baleen plates and the water leaves through the openings of the baleen plates. The tongue licks these bristles clean and then the prey move through the grapefruit-sized throat. Two to five throat grooves also expand when the whales feed to increase the surface area. Baleen plates hang from the roof of the mouth and these one foot long baleen plates filter food like mysids from the water.

Where They Eat:
Resident gray whales are most commonly seen feeding in and around kelp beds in water depths of 10 feet. Huge swarms of mysids live in these kelp beds
during spring, summer and early fall. These huge swarms range from 3 to 20 feet thick and have billions of mysids. One gray whale is estimated to eat a ton of these mysids per day. One sign of grays feeding on these mysids is when a partial fluke is exposed at the surface.

Oregon Coast Gray Whales

Off the Oregon Coast we see gray whales every month of the year. There are approximately 18,000 gray whales in the winter and spring migrations and a group of 200-400 whales that feed along the Oregon and Washington coast during fall and summer. In the spring March through June most of these gray whales make the journey from their breeding lagoons in Baja California to Arctic feeding grounds. On this northbound migration, small numbers of gray whales fall out of the migration group and stop at various locations along the Oregon coast. These whales are called resident whales.

For whales to be known as residents, they must stay around a certain area for at least two days, exhibit feeding behavior, and return year after year.This distinguishes them from migrating whales which stop on their migration and feed then move on their way.

Along the central Oregon coast, resident gray whales begin showing up in May. On any one day throughout the summer, numbers range from one to 20. Some arrive in early summer, leave, and then return in late summer or early fall.

Resident gray whales remain around Newport or Depoe Bay for a period of days to months. Some residents don’t show up for a year or more, there is one whale “Scarback” who been around for at least 17 years.The last of the residents leave in October or November and return to the breeding lagoons of Baja California to rejoin the remainder of the population.

How's Your Whale Knowledge? Fact or Fiction

1. Gray whales travel in pods …………………………………………...........True /False

2. Water sprays out of a whale’s blowhole………………………………..True / False

3. We only see gray whales during Winter or Spring…………………True / False

4. We have resident gray whales in Oregon waters……………………True / False

5. The whale’s full name is “California Gray Whale”…………….......True / False

6. Gray whales eat fish…………………………………………….………………True / False

7. Orcas are whales………………………………………………………………… True / False

8. Killer whales eat whales…………………………………………….…………True / False

9. We don’t see Humpback whales along the Oregon coast………..True / False


1. False. Pod means family and gray whales are solitary animals. There are some times that you see them close together. During migration, 19,000 whales are passing by and sheer numbers will put them close together. During summer feeding, when the food is plentiful, they will feed in the same areas. And when feeling romantic, there may be multiple whales vying for a female’s attention.

2. False. Whale's lungs are connected to their nose (blowhole) but not their mouth. They cannot blow water out of their blow hole. Some whales start to exhale before they reach the surface, blowing through the water and causing a visible water spray. Gray whale's lungs are the size of two chest freezers, and they empty them in a fraction of a second, causing visible condensation (like our breath in the winter).

3. False. We actually see whales every month of the year along the Oregon coast. We have 19,000 gray whales during winter and spring migrations, plus a group of 200-400 whales that feed along the Oregon and Washington coasts during the summer and fall.

4. False. There is an urban legend of resident whales in Oregon waters, but all the whales along our coast migrate. The migration is to find warm calm waters for giving birth. Babies are born without the insulating blubber layer, and if born in our cold waters they will die from hypothermia.

5. False. The gray whale’s real name is “Eastern Pacific gray whale”. We don’t usually use the “Eastern”, and refer to them as Pacific gray whales. There is one other small group (130 whales) along the Russian coast.

6. False, usually. A gray whale’s throat is only the size of a grapefruit, obviously limiting what it can swallow. Their usual food is amphipods and are found in the mud on the sea floor, or mysid shrimp that are found in the water column in rocky areas. Both are no bigger than mosquitoes and they eat a ton a day. But they are opportunistic feeders and have been known to eat crab larve and small fish.

7. False. Orca’s common name of “killer whale” is really “killer of whales”. We got lazy and quit saying the “of’ and turned them into whales. Orcas were given their name because they kill whales. Orcas are technically the largest dolphins.

8. True. The transient orca’s (killer whale’s) favorite food is baby whales as the adults are too big for them. If they cannot get a baby whale, they will hunt sealions and seals. There is a different type of orca in the Puget Sound called residents and they are fish eaters.

9. False. There are about 1,100 humpback whales that migrate past Oregon with the grays at about the same time. There are also humpbacks that feed along the coast but their food is found 8 miles or more off shore. Occasionally currents will push their food close to shore and we will get to see them feeding. They are often seen by fishing boats, but not usually from shore location.

Wet Cat

Bobcat next to Ship

A Closer Look At Gray Whales

The most conspicuous identifying characteristics of gray whales are their size, distinctive mottled gray coloring, dorsal hump (no dorsal fin) and the knuckles along the back behind the dorsal hump.

Size: Gray whales range in size from 35 to 45 feet long, and weigh 30 to 40 tons­about the length of a school bus and the weight of ten elephants, mush larger than a diver. Females weigh more and are longer than the males. Gray whales are intermediate in size in comparison with other well-known whales. By comparison, blue whales are 80 to 100 feet long and orcas (killer whales) are 20-25 feet long.

Coloration: Gray whales are so called because of their mottled gray coloration. The natural pigmentation can range from almost black to almost white, and can include white spots that range from the size of a marble to a basketball.This mottled appearance is enhanced by barnacles, barnacle scars, and whale lice.

Rostrum (Head Region): The rostrum extends from the tip of the snout to the blowholes, a length of about six feet. The rostrum of adult gray whales is covered with barnacles and whale lice. Gray whales that feed on the bottom, rub off barnacles and leave barnacle scars. Young gray whales have a dimpled rostrum with one hair in each dimple.

Eyes: The eyes of the gray whale are brown in color and the size of an orange. Eyes are located at the end of the mouth line, seven or eight feet from the rostrum tip.

Blow: The gray whale blow is 6-10 feet high and is heart-shaped if seen from behind on a calm day. About 100 gallons of air is expelled from the blow at speeds that range from 150 and 200 miles per hour.

Dorsal Hump: Gray whales have no dorsal fin, instead they have a dorsal hump at the end of the back.

Knuckles: 6-12 bumps called knuckles are seen behind the gray whale's dorsal hump. In some whales they are very distinct and in others they are not.

Baleen Plates: 300 blonde baleen plates about one foot long hanq from the top jaw. Bristles on the inside edges of those plates trap food organisms.

Blowholes: Gray whales have two blowholes like all baleen whales.

Throat Grooves: Two to five throat grooves on the bottom of the throat expand when the whales are feeding.

Flippers: Behind the throat grooves are pointed, paddle-shaped flippers.

Tail Fluke: An adult's tail fluke is 9 feet wide. When the tail fluke goes under the ocean's surface it leaves a characteristic print called a "fluke print".

Flukeprint: A large circle of smooth water formed by tail fluke turbulence when a whale dives.

Go whale watching zodiac style aboard the "Whales Tail" small groups or just the family.

DOCKSIDE CHARTERS
PO Box 1308
Depoe Bay, Oregon 97341
(541) 765-2545 or (800) 733-8915

Lighthouse Mystery

The Disappearance of Muriel Travennard
Murders and unusual deaths are an important part of the tales of the old US Lighthouse Service. Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, the light that guided sailors into the harbor at Newport, is the site for the strange tale of Muriel Travennard. The lighthouse was in commission for only three years and replaced by another structure some distance away. Muriel, born in the late 19th century, was left motherless when very young. Her father, a sea captain, often took his daughter on his coastwide voyages.

When Muriel reached her teens, the father did not think a life on a ship, exposed to some of the language and actions of the forecastle, was a proper environment for a young woman. At just about this time, Capt. Travennard signed on a new crew for a voyage to Coos Bay. Her father departed, telling his daughter the voyage should take only a few weeks. While Muriel enjoyed her new surroundings, the weeks stretched into months. The young woman began to fear that her father had met some terrible fate. One day, a group of youths, hoping to take Muriel's mind off her missing father, invited the girl to explore the abandoned Yaquina Bay Lighthouse. Muriel accepted the invitation. The lighthouse proved a shambles.

The young adults found a strange iron plate in the floor, which gave way to a compartment with a hole dug in its floor. This strange arrangement held the young people for a short period, but then they moved on to explore the rest of the light structure, leaving the iron door ajar. By late afternoon, everyone decided they had had enough of the lighthouse and decided to return home. In the lowering twilight, just as the group started away from the abandoned Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, Muriel stopped the exploring party and said that she had left a scarf inside. The young people waited until Muriel dashed inside the lighthouse to retrieve the forgotten item, it should have taken only a minute to do so. The group of teenagers waited and waited. As time passed, they began to become nervous and started shouting out Muriel’s name, with no response.

A few of the young people decided to go inside and find her. A quick search proved fruitless, but then two discoveries sent the youths running in terror from the abandoned lighthouse. At the bottom of the stairs leading up into the tower was a pool of blood and a trail of blood droplets that led to the iron door, which had mysteriously closed. The young adults tried the door without success. Now, thoroughly terrified, the teenagers ran home to report the terrible happenings. A later search could find no trace of Muriel Travennard. The iron door could not be opened. Even efforts with a strong crowbar could not budge the door. No trace of Muriel Travennard was ever found. A dark stain still "marks the spot where her blood was found." Reports still circulate that her ghost can be seen "peering out from a dark lantern room and walking the shadowy path behind the lighthouse."