Happening Now
The exhalation reaches you a half second after you see it, and it is louder than you expected — closer to weather than to an animal. Then the back keeps coming, and keeps coming, and you understand that the largest creature ever to exist on this planet is alongside the boat you are standing on.
Summer pushes them into the deep canyons off Point Loma, where upwelling stacks up the krill they came for. On a good afternoon there are several visible at once from a single deck. Boats leave from Shelter Island, Harbor Island, and the Embarcadero, most with a naturalist aboard, running a few hours out to the canyon edges and back.
July into September is the window and the good departures fill. Dress in layers — the water runs far colder than the shore, even in August.
Everyone describes it the same way afterward: recalibrated. Take somebody who needs that.