Memorial weekend has been a weekend to remember thanks to the whales! Our first trip started off with some playful long beaked common dolphins swimming just beneath our bow in the pressure wave we create while we cruise foreward. I like to think of this kind of like what we experience when we launch off or a ramp in Mario Cart – except in this case – the boat is the ramp and the dolphins are in the race! Dolphin energy is so addictive – you can almost feel the joy radiating on to the boat as even the grumpiest (or, queasiest) of passengers begin to giggle with delight.
We quickly found the whale zone after that and spent plenty of time hanging out with 6+ blue whales!
Later on we found some off shore bottlenose hanging out with a dense raft of sea lion sand another large group of blue whales!
We had a whaley great time today on the water! We made friends with some more SEAtaceans! On our afternoon trip we found ~25 offshore bottlenose dolphins and ~9 Blue whales! When we were just about to leave the drop-off and head back to Mission Bay, the offshore bottlenose dolphins started to snout ride in front of a blue whale! It was so spectacular to see interspecific social behaviors between a large baleen whale and a smaller toothed whale! Our sunset trip was also absolutely magical! We first encountered another pod of ~25 offshore bottlenose dolphins.
We quickly zoomed past them to catch up with 7 blue whales! We got some really great close up looks with multiple blue whales! It wa so beautiful to see their majestic spouts illuminated by the sunset.
Always so much to be grateful for out here!
We hope to see you all out here soon, it’s a little bit of real life magic
Naturalist,
Alison & Melissa
