Watery Field Trip : 29 Oceangoing 3rd-Graders Overcome Seasickness and Watch Migrating California Gray Whales

Every roll and toss of the fishing boat made 8-year-old Gary Rose, who had never taken an ocean voyage before, more than a little nervous.

At first he huddled as far away as possible from the spray thrown by the choppy waves, wishing desperately to be back on land.

But when the other members of his third-grade class spotted a whale, he abandoned caution and moved to the railing for a firsthand peek.

“I love this,” said Gary, who quickly lost his fear and began teasing his classmates with cries of “Jaws.”

Whale-watching season--a chance to witness the annual migration of about 20,000 California gray whales to and from the Baja Peninsula--is in full swing in Ventura County.

For the thousands of whale watchers who annually depart from the Ventura and Channel Islands harbors, the season conjures up images of high seas adventure and close-up views of the air-breathing mammals.

The price for many is a few hours of stomach-churning seasickness, and the whale-watching expedition that left Channel Islands Harbor on a recent chilly Friday morning was no exception.

It marked the first time at sea for 21 of the 29 students in Pam Mortenson’s third-grade class from E.P. Foster School.

The children from Foster, a kindergarten-through-third-grade school on Ventura Avenue, had collected and recycled aluminum cans since September to pay for the field trip.

But Mortenson told the eager children that the $120 they had raised would not cover the $375 in trip expenses. The children were disappointed, she said.

But last week Jack Ward, who owns Captain Jack’s Landing in Oxnard and was one of the founders of Channel Islands Harbor, donated the whale-watching voyage.

“They appreciate a lot that we just take for granted,” Ward said, as a child trying to reach the front of the boat crowded past him. “They enjoy the boat moving, the islands and everything they see.”

Indeed, the children used binoculars to get a closer look at everything from the pelicans that bobbed in the dark, gray sea to sea lions vying for a sunny spot on a buoy.

Carlos Pinentel, 8, proved himself invaluable by judging and sampling the ocean’s wettest waves.

Leaning over the starboard railing, Carlos alerted his friends to the biggest waves so they could gather at the edge before the water smacked the front of the boat and sprayed them.

“It was just perfect,” he said, wearing an impish grin despite the water that dripped from his hair down his face and onto his sodden black ski jacket.

Interest in waves gave way to whales when a plane spotted two California gray whales about two miles from shore and alerted the boat’s captain.

Soon the blue and white, 65-foot, twin-diesel boat was trailing two juvenile whales, between 25 and 35 feet long and about 8 years old.

The whales meandered along, periodically showing the excited sightseers a flash of dark brown back or a small spout of water from their blowholes.

The children also tracked the whales by their footprints--smooth patches of water created when the whales swim close to the surface.

Ventura’s whale-watching season lasts from December through April, when regularly scheduled boats allow viewers to catch the overlapping northward and southward migrations of California gray whales.

The whales head south in October when the Arctic feeding ground that supplies them with the small, shrimp-like creature they crave is covered by ice.

Their final destination, 6,000 miles away, is the Baja Peninsula, where pregnant females give birth to their calves.

By February, the calves manage to develop a layer of blubber that will help shield them from the cold, and the whales begin their northern trek.

The journey, which takes about three months each way, is one of the longest migrations of any mammal.

Whale-watchers are apt to spot many whale varieties, ranging from orcas to humpbacks, in the channel. But it is the California gray whale that is the stock of Ventura’s whale-watching trade.

“The gray whales you can bank on,” said Shaun Akers, who works as a crew member on many whale-watching expeditions. “You can set your watch on them.”

Mortenson’s students spent an entire day learning all they could about the whales. They also talked about how to prevent seasickness, she said.

But no amount of education helps if your sea legs are wobbly. At least five children got sick, and possibly the biggest excitement of the day came when one student observed that Mortenson was a little under the weather herself.

“Guess what, everybody,” one third-grader said. “Mrs. Mortenson threw up.”