Saturday April 13, 2024
We had a great start to our whale watching adventure this morning with an even better FINish! For our morning trip, we headed out southwest towards the 9-mile bank. We first encountered ~50 long-beaked common dolphins. The LB common dolphins led us to the edge of the 9-mile bank. We were about 12 miles away from Mission Bay at our furthest point! We sighted a spout and followed it for a few breath cycles, leading us to FIN whale galore! Before we knew it, we were surrounded by 3 other fin whales! We got great looks at 4 individual fin whales and saw two more spouts in the distance. Dolphinitely lots of wildlife out there on the Pacific ocean today! We headed out into some NAUTICAL seas today and managed to find a small pod of long beaked common dolphins as we continued out west we noticed a ton of valella valella! Valella Valella are always exciting to see! Usually three mean we will see a ton more Mola Molas ( ocean sun fish) Molas love to eat Valellas. They also tend to be sighted more frequently in the same area and around the same time of year that we have an influx of Fin whales!
We’re excited to see if the signs the ocean is giving will hold true for the season!
Naturalist,
Melissa & Alison
