Friday, March 8, 2024
We made some new dolphriends on our trips today! We set out to the west and found ourselves along the drop-off. On our morning trip, we sighted a pod of ~100 Short-beaked Common dolphins cruising to the south. They zoomed up to us to ride the bow and play in our wake! We continued to the north and caught up with another pod of Commons but this time they were the Long-beaks! We continued to the west and found ourselves in about 1500-ft of water! We enjoyed the presence of more 200 more Long and short-beaked Commons! On our second trip, we pushed out to the west and found a small pod of ~15 Offshore bottlenose dolphins cruising slowly to the south along the drop-off! They were very curious of our boat as they swam straight up to us! They continued on and said Goodbye by breaching behind our boat! We sighted more splashes to the west and found a fun pod of ~100 Long-beaked Common dolphins. There many playful juveniles and cow/calf pairs! We have one more trip to go…we will update you soon!
There was an abundance of life just a bit further off of our coastline tonight! We made it about 7 miles off shore when we found a massive pod of long beaked common dolphins! They were BURSTING with so much energy- racing over to catch a wave at our bow! There was a massive feeding frenzy just ahead! While we were surrounded with dolphins Capt. John spied a short bushy spout off in the distance so, with light fading we RACED in that direction hoping to catch a glimpse of a whale before the last rays of light faded from the sky. We were just in time to cruise by 3 gray whales as they journey tirelessly back north to their home waters of the Bering sea.
Naturalist,
Vanessa & Alison
Naturalist,
Vanessa
