20-Foot Gray Whale Navigates Marinas

LONG BEACH —  A 20-foot young gray whale, apparently lost on its 12,000-mile round-trip migration between Baja and the Arctic, swam into the Alamitos Bay Marina for a few hours Saturday, then drifted in and out of the Downtown Marina, startling passersby.

The whale was last seen at 4:30 p.m. at the fuel dock of the downtown marina, according to Long Beach lifeguards, who said they could not be certain it was the same whale sighted at Alamitos Bay marina.

“It went right under my boat, three to five feet under,” said Pat Macha, a teacher at Hawthorne High School, who saw the whale loitering around the 2nd Street Bridge early in the afternoon. “We saw his back and hump.”

Macha said he has spent a lot of time on the bay over the years, sailing and surf-skiing, and he has never seen a whale this close to shore.

“It just seemed a little disoriented,” Macha said.

After exploring the bridge, Macha said, the whale seemed to regain its sense of direction and leave the bay.

“We herded it out through the mouth of Alamitos Bay and the last we were able to observe, it was headed out to sea.”

But lifeguards in Long Beach said they were receiving reports of a whale in their bailiwick throughout the late afternoon.

“It’s been in and out of the marina all day,” lifeguard Grant Jeffries said. “It’ll go out for a while and come back in. There’s been quite a few sightings in both marinas. . . . It’s hard to tell at this point whether it’s lost, sick or just sightseeing.”