We celebrated the Red, White and BLUE WHALES today! Blue whales and Common dolphins were sighted on both trips today. We started the day off with a feeding frenzy of ~100 Long-beaked Common dolphins. There were many California Brown Pelicans diving and feeding on small schooling fish. We began to head toward the west, but a juvenile Minke whale popped up in front of us, only 3-miles from shore swimming toward the bait ball. We only got a quick couple looks. We continued to the drop-off and encountered Blue whales galore! We hung out with 3-4 Blue whales with 3 more out in the distance. We got amazing looks as one of them showed their flukes! We even got mugged by one of the Blue whales that popped next to us! The sound of its exhalation was so loud it shook us to our core! In the afternoon, we experienced deja vu, and sighted more feeding Common dolphins feeding under diving birds. The Blue whales didn’t move very far and caught up with 3 that circled the area. We got another close view of one of the Blue whales, and watched it show its flukes. A pod of ~100 Short-beaked Common dolphins passed us by as they traveled south. The blue skies enhanced the beautiful blue glow! On our sunset trip we encountered 5 blue whales after checking out a feeding frenzy of long-beaked common dolphins and birds! It was truly an incredible day!
Naturalist,
Vanessa and Ryan
