‘Glassy seas’ reveal largest animal on Earth off the CA coast. See ‘real prize’

Boaters off the coast of California got the chance to see the biggest animal on Earth and the group is calling it a “once in a lifetime” moment.

On June 16, the group set out on the “misty (P)acific with limited visibility” but with “all the hope in the world” before eventually coming across a baby humpback whale along with some dolphin friends, according to a Facebook post by San Diego Whale Watch.

Later, the skies cleared up, creating “glassy seas” that revealed a pod of “curious” bottlenose dolphins that would “zoom up to the bow swimming with their bellies pointed at the boat,” the group said.

Then the showstoppers decided to make an appearance – a mama blue whale, the biggest animal on Earth, and her calf, bystanders said.

The group even got the chance to see the “breathtaking” 25-foot span of the tail in the “rare” sighting, onlookers said.

A baby blue whale is the “world’s biggest” baby, being born at 23 feet and weighing in at 6,000 pounds, the group said. They’ll gain 10 pounds per hour by drinking their mama’s milk.

Blue whales can weigh up to 330,000 pounds and grow to 110 feet long, making their length about the same as the height of a 10-story building, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

They can live up to 90 years, though there was one that famously lived to be 110 years old, according to the nonprofit Whale and Dolphin Conservation.

The group said “blue whales are super rare and never a sure thing” even to the point where “not too long ago” researchers thought they could be extinct, which made for this sighting to be a “real prize,” the post said.

This story was originally published June 18, 2025 at 11:36 AM with the headline "‘Glassy seas’ reveal largest animal on Earth off the CA coast. See ‘real prize’."