Whale, whale, whale, we had another successful day on the water! We encountered whales and dolphins on both of our morning and afternoon trips! We also had a rare bird sighting of a yellow-crowned night heron. During our morning trip, it seemed as though the ocean was sleeping in for the start of our trip. It was very quiet until we reached 12 miles offshore! We sighted a spout which led us to the area with multiple spouts. We got great looks at 5 blue whales. On our way back towards Mission Bay, we encountered a pod of ~100 long-beaked common dolphins and ~10 Risso’s dolphins!
On our afternoon trip, we encountered a pod of ~150 long-beaked common dolphins. They were surfing in our wake and riding our bow! Once we past the drop-off, we sighted a blue whale around 8 miles offshore! This whale was acting a bit elusive so we wished it whale and continued further offshore. A couple of miles later, we sighted 2 more blue whales and found another smaller pod of ~25 long-beaked common dolphins. Always so much fun on the Privateer! We have another trip coming up this evening so please stay tuned.
THE DOLPHIN POARTY RETURNED IN FULL FORCE TONIGHT!
We had a pod of ~ 500 Short beaked common dolphins out there today! Man are they so incredible to witness! We had the tiniest little jumping beans absolutely GOING OFF! It was like the pacific was their own personal bounce house! We were seeing all their favorite tricks! Tail walks, side slaps, HUGE leaps, and an absolute SWARM of them riding on the wake of the bow! While we were in the middle of this incredible group of dolphins, Capt. Bryan spotted a distant spout and we were able to get out eyes on one ENORMOUS blue whale 12 miles from shore before we had to turn around.
Naturalist,
Melissa & Alison
