Gray day lets whales take cover.

Byline: MARK BAKER The Register-Guard

FLORENCE - If you fail to see a whale, or its protruding tail, is it really there?

"They're out there," said Jim Archer, a whale-watch volunteer with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, "you just can't see 'em."

Not on a day like Saturday.

But that didn't stop travelers up and down Highway 101 on the Oregon Coast from trying to see the gray whales as they make their annual migration from summer feeding grounds in Arctic waters to a, well, better wintertime location: Mexico.

Whales aren't stupid, you know. They are mammals.

Volunteers are staffing 29 "Whale Watching Spoken Here" locations along the coast, from Ilwaco, Wash., to Crescent City, Calif., during the 25th anniversary of the weeklong program that began Thursday.

On Saturday, volunteers assisted onlookers at a lookout point between Sea Lion Caves and Heceta Head Lighthouse.

But all anyone could see were the sea lions. Which was all right with some folks.

"You guys! The sea lions!" shouted Thomas Quisenberry of Eugene, who, despite the miserable, drizzly weather, stopped by with his aunt, Suzy Barstow of Florence, and his grandparents, Marlan and Shirley Barstow of Eugene.

"They look like a bunch of sea lions that are fighting and have flippers," Thomas said, gazing at the beached and barking creatures lining the rocks below.

The whales aren't the only ones migrating these days.

California sea lions head north in late summer and live on the rocks and in the sea caves of Oregon before returning to breed the next summer, said Joyce Ewart, another whale-watch volunteer.

The fat, brown sea lions also could be seen "rafting" in groups offshore, where they looked more like birds floating on the water.

As for the gray whales that most spectators came to see, a couple of them were spotted Thursday, but none since, Ewart said.

"I wish we had something out here (to see)," she said.

Besides warm winter clothes and binoculars, Ewart advises whale watchers to bring something else with them when they come to the coast: patience.

"They're not just going to jump out of the water," Ewart said. "Gray whales don't do that - orcas do."

About 26,000 gray whales, each about 45 feet long and weighing 70,000 pounds, are southbound along the coast. In the warm waters along Mexico's Baja peninsula the whales will mate and give birth to their calves. The 10,000-mile round-trip migration is the longest of any mammal.

The whales pass by at a rate of about 30 an hour.

The first thing you will see, on a much clearer day than Saturday, is the whale's spout.

That's what binocular-wielding whale watchers should look for first, Ewart said.

Last year, 16,615 sightseers spotted 1,471 whales.

And two years ago, a record 19,414 people saw 1,566 whales. That's a number not likely to be broken this year, unless the skies clear up and the seas calm down in a hurry.

Winds of more than 70 mph hit the coast Friday, creating 15 to 25 foot swells, making whale watching virtually impossible.

But one must never give up hope.

"It's too bad it's so cloudy, you can't see very far," said Clifford Meade of Eugene, who went to the coast Saturday with his wife, Mavis.

"But that's OK. It beats grocery shopping."

WATCHING THE WHALES

Where to go: Volunteers are staffing 29 viewpoints along the coast of Washington, Oregon and California between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. through Thursday. The following viewpoints are on the central Oregon Coast from Newport to Coos Bay: Yaquina Head Lighthouse, Yaquina Bay State Recreation Site, Seal Rock State Recreation Site, Yachats State Recreation Area, Devil's Churn Viewpoint, Cape Perpetua Overlook, Cape Perpetua Interpretive Center, Heceta Head by Sea Lion Caves, Umpqua Lighthouse, Shore Acres State Park.

CAPTION(S):

THOMAS BOYD / The Register-Guard Jeffery Yuan and his daughters, Candee, 6 (center), and Camilla, 9, of Los Angeles look at sea lions near Sea Lion Caves, north of Florence. Folks who hoped to see whales on Saturday didn't have much luck.