We had an action-packed day full of wildlife! We sighted Blue whales, Minke whales, Bottlenose and Common dolphins! On our morning tour, we set out to ward the NW and spotted a pod of ~100 Long-beaked Common dolphins traveling fast to the south! They surrounded our boat and we loved every minute of it! We passed the drop-off and at about 11-miles from shore, off La Jolla we found TWO Minke whales. They circled our boat several times, which is not a common sight! We caught up with about 40 Offshore bottlenose dolphins on the way home!
On our afternoon trip, we went west and spotted a big spout on the horizon! We found a Blue whale in 1800-ft of water! We got great looks at its whole body and even the tail flukes! It lifted its tail on every sounding dive! We left to go home but found a small handful of Offshore bottlenose dolphins but it turned into being close to ~75 in all! There were two more bottlenose dolphin pods to the east! One bottlenose dolphin leaped above the railing and only 1-ft away from the bow and looked like it was going to jump into our boat!
We also had another afternoon trip go out on the Ohana! We saw a massive pod of ~200 Long-beaked common dolphins. They were surfing alongside the boat. Once we passed the drop-off, we found ~10 offshore bottlenose dolphins which kept us in the area until we sighted a spout! We encountered 1 Blue whale and hung out with it for several breath cycles.
We had a trip full of life on our last trip! WE had a solid feeding frenzy of dolphins, terns, sea lions and pelicans. The dolphins played in the wake as we traveled out west. We Spotted a blue whale a little north west of the jetties but MAN was it long winded. This whale was staying down for 14- 16 min dives but it treated us to some incredible views of its fluke before going on each sounding dive!
Naturalist,
Vanessa & Meli
