A barnacled grey whale silently swam south while members of the “Cays Crew” were surfing last Tuesday morning. Little did the whale know that he would become the star of all three local news stations by that evenings’ broadcast. That’s because Daron Case, who many in town know for his majestic photos of waves breaking on the Silver Strand, was there to film the migration.
Daron and his fellow surfers watched the whale with awe, and then Daron, armed with his GoPro, dipped under water and filming the whale in it’s ocean habitat. The footage he took is breathtaking (video below). Graciously, he has given eCoronado.com exclusive still frames of the whale that have not been published anywhere before. 
Daron grew up in the Cays at Blue Anchor in the 1980s, attending Silver Strand Elementary. He attended Coronado Middle School, and graduated from Coronado High School in 1990. After attending college, Daron went to law school. It was in while he was in law school that Daron learned to surf at Venice Beach.
After graduating from law school, Daron lived in Los Angeles, and there he met his wife, Vanessa. Having grown-up in Hawaii, Vanessa could appreciate Daron’s love of the island lifestyle. As they started their family, they knew where they wanted to raise their children – in the same place that Daron had grown up – in the Coronado Cays. So in November of 2013, they left Los Angeles, and returned back to Coronado. Here in Coronado, Daron launched the Cays Realty Group.
Daron explained that the Cays provide the ideal Coronado lifestyle. He and Vanessa can take their children over to the Bay, just as easily as Daron can hit the surf at Silver Strand Beach.
Once settled in their new home, Daron hit the waves and met the local surfers at the Silver Strand Beach.
Daron started taking photos after he joined the group and started posting them on Facebook. After this, the gang started calling themselves the “Cays Crew”.
These friends, mostly men in there 40s and 50s, are a group who hit the surf whenever their work schedule permits. On any given morning there are about five members of the Cays Crew enjoying our beautiful Coronado ocean.
(Photo: Daron and his family)
I did bring a cub reporter with me on this interview, – my neighbor and friend Lesley Huffaker. If you know Lesley you know she is effervescently curious and couldn’t get her questions for Daron out fast enough.
Lesley’s also a very spiritual person, so she asked a question, I wouldn’t have thought to ask: “Is it ever a spiritual experience for you out there, Daron?” Warm and friendly, Daron answered that it was indeed “a spiritual experience waiting between sets.” He said, ” I wouldn’t want to push it too far, but it very Zen out there – you can focus on one thing.”
He went on to explain that, “the ocean is an ever changing canvas…yet so peaceful. ” “Until you’re in a wave surfing and then it’s incredibly exciting,” he laughed.
(Photo: “Captain of the Cays” – Daron Case – showing off his GoPro)
After Lesley got her questions answered, I asked Daron about the whale, and if anyone scared of it. Daron said they felt awe, not fear. He noted that the whale was about 20 feet long and moving very slowly.
He said, “I don’t think the whale even saw us.” He noted that the whale was small and migrating south a bit earlier than usual. Perhaps the whale was not healthy.
But that doesn’t mean that Daron doesn’t have a healthy fear of creatures of the ocean. He reminded me that there are big whales out there that could breach and land on top of a human, or whip a human with its’ big tale.
Daron said that when a Hammerhead shark was spotted at the mouth of the San Diego Bay, the Cays Crew took note. “Anything else dangerous out there?” I asked. “Only those stingrays with their painful sting,” Daron answered.
Amazingly, this is not Daron’s first encounter with a whale. He and Dave Orozco from the Cays Crew
encountered a mother whale and her calf, back in April. While his footage on Tuesday’s encounter made all the local television stations, his encounter with the mother whale and calf made ABC World Tonight. The footage of the mother whale and calf is also in a link below.
And if you’re wondering how Daron takes these amazing shots, it’s with a GoPro. The crucial aspect of his GoPro is that it has a snorkel-like piece so that he can hold the GoPro in his mouth. If he wants to film with hands, he just transfers the GoPro from his mouth to his hands. This gives him much more flexibility than a GoPro attached to a surf board.
Daron’s photos are so spectacular that many of them are printed on canvas and can be seen at the EmeraldC Art Gallery, here in town. Vanessa’s woodblock art of his wave prints are also displayed at EmeraldC Art Gallery. Daron’s ocean photos can also be seen at High Tide Pizza. If you’re an Instagram.com user you enjoy Daron’s majestic wave and surf photos by following him on instragram.com/captainofthecays. Here Daron’s amazing footage from Tuesday:
You can view Daron’s spectacular footage from the female whale encounter with her calf in April on 10News.
(Whale photos, whale video and family photo courtesy of Daron Case)
