We enjoyed a Super Saturday aboard the Privateer! We set out on the morning trip and encountered an combo pod of ~40 Risso’s and ~15 Offshore bottlenose dolphins! They were very slowly traveling along the drop-off. We watched as they popped up all around us. There was one tiny calf in the mix that mom was being very protective over. The bottlenose dolphins were likely a nursery pod, as they had about four cow/calf pairs. The juvenile bottlenose were breaching and zooming all around the boat. During the afternoon trip, we set out to the drop-off down to the south and sighted a fun pod of ~200 Short-beaked Common dolphins. They were launching out of the water like rockets! There were several cow/calf pairs in the mix. At the end of the trip, we sighted a Humpback whale breaching to the west of us. We ran out of time, but it was still fun to see from a distance.
We have the Sunset trip coming up next…we are crossing fingers for more activity!
Our sunset trip started off with some moody skies, scattered rain clouds and a bit of wind chop. However, as time passed the clouds started to clear out and we enjoyed some really colorful clouds and an interesting sunset! We also encountered 3 separate pods of common dolphins throughout our trip. We saw ~200 long-beaked common dolphins and ~150 short-beaked common dolphins. Always on the search for more cetaceans! We’ll be back on the water tomorrow!
Naturalist,
Vanessa & Melissa
