August 25, 2019

Repeat for the WIN! We had another Super Cetacean Sunday today! We got lucky in sighting three species of toothed whale and one species of baleen whale! During the morning we zoomed out to the SW and at 11.5-miles from shore we found an awesome pod of ~30-40 Risso’s dolphins! They were split into two subgroups that were swimming in echelon formation. We observed them pass by our boat in close proximity a couple times. We observed two Offshore Bottlenose dolphins traveling along with them, which is a common mixing. We left them behind and a Minke whale was sighted close to our boat! We observed it pop up around us as it traveled north. We continued on, and found a pod of ~10-12 Offshore Bottlenose dolphins! They swam beside us, rode the bow, and breached a couple of times! We watched them as they traveled south.
During the afternoon, we toured the northern part of San Diego. We set out to the west and hooked it to the NW beyond the drop-off. We got lucky and found an awesome pod of ~100 Long-beaked Common dolphins! They were amazing to see swim right beside us, as they usually are boat-friendly. We got observed them all around us, as they spread out. The came back together and milled about. We sighted a couple cow/calf pairs that came over to hang out. We enjoyed watching them porpoise from time to time as well breach! We could hear random vocalizations as they weren’t too chatty. They disappeared on a deep dive a few times, but always popped up nearby. We wished them well and enjoyed the ride home.
Trash/Recyclables: Three Mylar balloons, and one bundle of latex balloons successfully retrieved!
Naturalist,
Vanessa