In 1985, Humphrey mysteriously entered San Francisco Bay and was followed closely on the evening news by all Bay Area television stations. Each evening the Bay area audience would tune in for the latest update on Humphrey’s plight, until – even more amazingly – he swam up the Sacramento River into a freshwater habitat. Then national media coverage began and the whole country watched the ensuing story. The whale, first spotted at Oakland's Outer Harbor October 10, 1985, swam up the Carquinez Strait, the Sacramento River and under the Rio Vista Bridge to a dead-end slough 69 miles (111 km) from the ocean.