We had a FIN-tastic Sunday with a Fin whale sighted on both of our morning and afternoon tours! We sighted Long-beaked Common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins too! During our morning trip, we set out to the west and spotted scattered Long-beaks all around in about 100-ft of water. We got into 1700-ft of water and spotted a fluke print right in front of us. We slowed it down and sure enough a Fin whale came up for a breath! It surfaced for 5-7 breaths and went down for 10-min dives. We spotted two more huge spouts to the west. On our way in we spotted more Commons and a handful of inshore Bottlenose dolphins. On our second trip, right off the bat, we sighted about 100 Long-beaked Common dolphins stretched out all around us. We observed feeding behavior as they zoomed around the boat. We got out past the drop-off and a sighted the big columnar spout! We caught up with the whale and it ended up being the same Fin whale watched on the morning trip. We could tell, because there’s a distinctive ‘C’-shaped nick on the trailing edge of the dorsal fin. We spotted handfuls of Velella vellela’s nearby while waiting for the Fin whale to surface.
Our sunset trip was absolutely FIN-omenal! We quickly encountered a pod of ~50 long-beaked common dolphins. They led us towards the area where we sighted a spout! We hung out with two fin whales for multiple breath cycles, even seeing a beautiful rainBLOW illuminated by a spectacular sunset. Always a fun time on the water with us. Please come join us soon!
Sea ya soon!
Naturalist,
Vanessa & Melissa
