Farallon Islands Whale Watching

Our vessel, the iconic 60-foot Salty Lady, departs from San Francisco Yacht Harbor at 8:30am. On every trip we provide a whale expert, a seabird expert, and a professional photographer who shares photos with you for free! No matter what animals we see, our experts will tell you all about them and they will be photographed and recorded in digital databases to support research and conservation.

To start the trip, we cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge, often seeing harbor porpoises along the way, and travel up the coastline of the Marin Headlands. We then check in at Diablo Cove to see hauled-out harbor seals and occasional Black Oystercatchers on the rocks. From there, we head past Point Bonita Lighthouse and begin our 27-mile journey to the Farallon Islands, humpback whale watching and birding all along the way.

A little over 2 hours later, we pull into the calm waters of Fisherman’s Bay at Southeast Farallon Island. There, we soak in the incredible marine habitat which supports over 300,000 breeding seabirds, over 5,000 seals and sea lions and over 100 great white sharks in the fall months (disclaimer: it is very rare to see sharks on our trips, but they are there!). There are also several resident gray whales to see at the Farallon Islands, one of the only places in the world to see them outside of Alaskan waters during the summer months.

Next, we continue over to the south side of the Farallones where the biologists who study and preserve the islands live. (Please note: at no point during the trip do we set foot on the islands, they are off-limits to the public.) Nearby, there is a huge colony of northern fur seals, which is growing year after year despite being hunted to local extinction in the late 1800s. Weather permitting, we then go beyond the islands to the Farallon Escarpment, where the ocean floor drops off from roughly 300 to 3,000 feet very quickly. This area is where we can find rarely-seen deep-water seabirds (including albatross), a large variety of dolphins and porpoises, and enormous, magnificent blue whales. From there we begin making our way back to San Francisco Bay, seeking out more whale encounters along the way. We often have beautiful sunny conditions and great photographic opportunities coming back under the Golden Gate Bridge. We arrive back in San Francisco right around 4:00pm and our wildlife experts will give a summary of what we saw and our photographer will have a link to images from the day ready for you to view or share as you wish.

To learn more about the wildlife, history, and conservation of the islands, see our comprehensive guide to the Farallon Islands.