Over Labor Day weekend in Depoe Bay, Salem photographer and content creator Brian Stone was rock fishing in an aluminum boat with his kids when they had two close-up encounters with gray whales.

In one video, a whale suddenly surfaces directly in front of them, slips under the hull, then rises on the other side to blow. “It scared us to death when it first popped up,” Stone said. “You could hear the whale breathe out and then suck the air back in — it’s amazing.”

On a separate outing the same weekend, video shows a gray whale at the surface passing slowly alongside their boat about a dozen feet away, blowing and then diving. The kids’ shocked excitement is audible in the background.

Gray whale sightings near Depoe Bay are common. Nicknamed the “whale watching capital of the Oregon Coast

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