Whale expert Alisa Schulman-Janiger’s camera clicked away as the fin of a minke whale breached the water’s surface, she just standing feet away.

It was a rare occurrence for her, she usually spies whales through binoculars leading an annual count of migrating grays from the Palos Verdes Peninsula. But it is also rare for a whale, especially a minke, to be cruising around Long Beach’s inner harbor waters.

“It just made a big splash! Oh, oh — what is it doing?” she said. “It’s incredible to be standing on land and see a minke like this. It’s a little exciting.”

The wayward whale has been hanging out in the Rainbow Harbor this week, drawing a crowd of spectators.

The minke whale doesn’t seem sick, skinny, injured or in danger. There’s no explanation of why it is in the waterway, but the hope is it can navigate its way back out to the open ocean, said Schulman-Janiger, who is the director and coordinator of the American Cetacean Society’s Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

“Bob the Minke Whale,” as the 25-foot-long creature has been dubbed, was first spotted on March 31, near the Harbor Breeze charter boats and the Aquarium of Long Beach.

The second day, it meandered by Shoreline Village. The third and fourth days, it was further away from the harbor entrance, back by the Catalina Express.

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“Nobody saw it come in, it could have been chasing a school of fish or exploring,” Schulman-Janiger said. “We have no idea why it came in.”

The whale’s breathing doesn’t seem to be labored, she added, and it’s breath doesn’t stink. (That’s often the case for minke whales, hence the nickname “stinky minkes.”)

“But there’s no way to know if it’s not well,” she said. “We don’t know.”

The hope is the high tide at about 1 a.m. will allow enough water for the whale to navigate toward the deeper water at the harbor entrance.

“The deeper the water, the better chance it has of leaving the harbor,” Schulman-Janiger said.  “We don’t know why it’s here, we hope it leaves soon.”

It’s not the first time whales have been stuck in the Rainbow Harbor, usually wayward gray whales during their Alaska-to-Mexico migration.

There are not a lot of minke whales around, only 509 are known along California, Oregon and Washington, based on stats from 2023.

They are solo travelers and can be hard to spot because they don’t have visible blows. They are sometimes curious, but most times do not like to approach boats. They munch on fish and krill. They are the northern hemisphere’s smallest baleen whale species.

Unlike many other whale species, minkes do not have migration patterns, Schulman-Janiger said.

Back in the basin, there’s not a big risk from boats, and the Catalina Express crew knows it is in the harbor and are keeping a close watch. But if it goes closer to the harbor entrance, boaters should use caution and keep speeds slow, Schulman-Janiger said.

Now, it just needs to find its way out of the harbor.

“It’s their world,” Schulman-Janiger added, “we are just visitors to their water.”