Elkhorn Slough Safari Nature Tours

 

2

28

Dorian M.

San Jose, CA

I went on one of the regular 2-hour tours and I saw way more wildlife than I expected.  I thought we'd see an otter here and there, a few sea lions, seals, birds... but we actually saw a large "raft" of sea otters, hundreds of sea lions - including lots of pups.

Minus 1 star because you have to pay with cash or check on day of - who doesn't take credit cards these days?  I never carry a checkbook and I rarely carry that much cash (didn't help I was trying to pay for 4 people to go).  Also, we were a group of four and two of us didn't get to sit anywhere near the other two, which was a bummer.

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Elite '08

11

97

Tim H.

Monterey, CA

I've always marveled at the cooler photos of sea otters that you see on postcards, posters etc. I've never manged to get a shot even close to those I marveled after.

I got to go on one of the Safari boat tours around Elkhorn Slough. This wasn't one of your regular two hour tours - this was a specially arranged three hour photographer specific tour, where we paid extra for the extra time and the reduced occupancy that allowed all us photographers to have a bench seat to ourselves - giving us plenty of room for all our equipment and allowing us to not get in each others way. These guys run various "specialty" tours for different audiences, check out their website.

Captain Yohn is ready for photographers, bungee cords at the ready, allowing folks to bungee their tripods to the rails of the pontoon boat. As we set sail (well, whatever the nautical term is for going for a cruise on a pontoon boat), the boat looked more like a photographic gunship with all the lenses hanging out the side.

The tour turned out to be very cool. The slough is home to sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, pelicans, cormorants and many other birds. Captain Yohn's local knowledge of the slough and his photographic knowledge allowed us to get up close and personal in great light situations with all of the afore mentioned species. Both sides of the boats got plenty of opportunities to shoot, and Captain Yohn frequently killed the engine to give us as stable a shooting platform as was possible.

I now have new cools shots for all sorts of marine and bird life and in particular a few cool otter shots to choose from - I'm a very happy lad.

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