It's close to the start of leatherback turtle season off Central California. During the season, we survey the coast between Point Sur and the Russian River. Our group of observers -- NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center biologists Karin Forney, Erin LaCasella, Tomo Eguchi and me -- piled into a plane piloted by Ed Saenz. We flew over relatively shallow waters -- less than 270 feet (90 meters) deep. In the language of science, those are called neritic waters, from the Greek word for sea mussels.

We were lucky to complete the survey during a beautiful sunny morning between the fog and wind that usually plagues our operations. Late May is a little early to expect a leatherback sighting, and we didn't see any, or the jellyfish they so love to eat. But plenty of other animals were around: humpback and gray whales, Pacific white-sided and Risso's dolphins, harbor porpoise, Steller and California sea lions, harbor seals, abundant sooty shearwaters and common murres. This is a shot of Pt. Reyes, and, below it, the lighthouse, where you can sometimes see the whales spouting by.

Overall, we were encouraged that conditions looked very good for late Spring and were relieved that our study area wasn't displaying symptoms of another Spring of weak upwelling. For the last two years, the northwest winds of April and May didn't appear. They induce upwelling along the coast and bring nutrients to the surface, and without them, seabird chicks starve, jellyfish don't appear, and neither do leatherbacks. (By the way, these leatherbacks nest in Indonesia, and migrate across the Pacific to feed on jellies that show up off the coast. It's a complete mystery why they go so far, or how they know where to go, but we're trying to find out.) For more information, check out the series of videos that chronicled the 2006 season (check movement and habitat use).

The turtles' main season is August and September, when jellies are at their highest concentrations. But, perhaps because there's so much food already, I've heard that leatherbacks have already been sighted by about a half-dozen people. They're kind of hard to miss if they surface near your boat -- they're five or six feet long....about the size of a dining room table. We'll be doing another survey this Thursday -- this time by boat, and we'll let you know how it looks. (Probably more foggy than the photo of Monterey Bay below...)
And if you're out on the bay and spot a giant leatherback turtle, leave a comment here. Tell us where and when you saw it, what it looked like, and what it was doing. If you snapped a photo, let us know, and we'll figure out a way to post it. Here's one last shot -- of the Golden Gate Bridge. If you're fishing out there and see jellies, there might be leatherbacks about.