Published November 5, 2026
NEWPORT BEACH | SURF & COAST | NOVEMBER 5, 2026
Some mornings, the biggest thing off the peninsula isn’t a new house. It’s a whale cruising past the front yard.
Davey’s Locker runs boats out of Newport Harbor year-round, with several departures a day. The company says its trips saw more than 1,900 whales in 2025, and more than 2,100 in 2023.
Quick clarification: that’s whales, not passengers. Davey’s doesn’t publish annual ridership, so we’re not going to invent a head count. The Ocean Explorer can carry up to 102 people, but capacity isn’t ridership.
The commute
Gray whales make a roughly 12,000-mile round trip between Arctic feeding grounds and warm water off Mexico. They head south along the West Coast from November through mid-February, then back north through May. Newport sits right on the route. Blue whales show up off California in summer and fall, and Davey’s runs trips all year.
The crew
Shout-out to Hunter, one of the whale-watching captains, and Pauly, who works both the fishing and whale-watching trips. And to all the longtime Davey’s Locker crew who’ve been getting generations of locals and visitors out on the water. They know the boats, they know the coast, and they make a two-hour ride feel like a front-row seat to the Pacific.
You don’t have to go to Alaska or Baja to see the migration. Sometimes the best seat in the house leaves from Newport Harbor.
Our front yard has a pretty impressive commute.
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