Thursday, 11/14/19

What a cool trip today! The weather was perfect and the ocean conditions were mellow. We came out of mission bay and first spotted a number of bait balls with diving brown pelicans which told us there was food around. As we approached the drop off we had dolphins leaping in the distance to our 1 o’clock and a swarm of birds to our 11. We pointed towards the birds in hope of a possible feeding humpback but instead found a cow/calf pair of Bryde’s whales! This is a rare tropical species we only see a few times off of San Diego. Now, if you’re reading this and you were on the trip today I know I was calling them fin whales most of the time, although to my credit I’d did say they could be Bryde’s whales but I wasn’t sure. Taking a look at the pictures I could see the spotting on the body that a Bryde’s whale displays and no chevron swirl of light grey like a fin whale. After spending some time with these speedy cetaceans we headed towards the very active pod of about 80 short-beaked common dolphins. Today goes to show you never know what you’re gonna see when you come out with us!
-Ryan