Ocean fishing guide Jim Sammons was paddling his kayak off La Jolla last winter when a newborn gray whale unexpectedly popped up a few feet off his bow.

“It was very intimidating,” he recalled.

While Sammons scrambled to retreat, the infant's 40-foot-long mother breached the surface to inspect the human intruder. Her spout shot up like a geyser.

“I could feel her mighty breath go right through my boat,” Sammons said. “She was so close I could have reached out and touched her.”

Unlike Sammons, most whale watchers rarely come closer than 100 yards, the minimum separation recommended by the National Marine Fisheries Service. But even from the span of a football field, seeing a whale is a thrill few nature lovers forget.

About 20,000 Pacific gray whales travel from Alaska to their mating and calving lagoons along southern Baja California during a four-month migration that typically starts in late September or early October.

They make the return trip around March with their newborns, completing a round-trip voyage of roughly 12,500 miles. By April, most will have passed by San Diego County on their northward route.

Commercial hunting of gray whales was banned in 1949. Since then, the marine mammals have become prized quarry for the growing eco-tourism business.

“Whale watching” was what San Diegans called it when the first coastal excursions began here in 1955, spawning a worldwide industry, said Eric Hoyt of Scotland, a researcher who writes about marine life.

Today, Hoyt said, tours targeting various whale species across the globe attract more than 9 million people from 87 countries. They generate more than $1 billion in revenue.

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