June Gloom or June Bloom? Our Pacific Ocean is positively blooming with such an abundance of wildlife! Straight out of the jetties we encountered a massive bird pile. Then, we headed up north towards La Jolla and encountered ~150 long-beaked common dolphins. They escorted us out to sea and were coming up to the boat and surfing in our wake. This led us to the general area where we spotted a massive spout from a Blue whale! We hung out with the Blue whale for several breath cycles, getting great looks from all areas on the boat. We have another trip coming up so please stay tuned!
The June Bloom continued for our afternoon trip! We went to the north and found a pod of ~100 Long-beaked Common dolphins that were traveling fast to the NW. We got amazing looks as they cruised beside us! We found ourselves in La Jolla and spotted a tall spout from a Blue whale! It circled the area with short dives of ~12-min. We waved goodbye and noticed an active pod of Common dolphins on the way, we couldn’t resist the fun, so we pushed out toward them. Our hunch was right! With the ~200 Long-beaked Common dolphins was a single Minke whale, and likely a Cow/calf pair of Fin whales! The minke popped up next to our boat a few times, as well as went under our boat! It was hard to leave the scene, but we enjoyed the smooth ride in!
Our luck carried through on the sunset trip! We quickly found a massive pod of long beaked common dolphins! Not just any pod but an energetic pod swimming quickly in a synchronized chorus line! That’s when hundreds are all swimming high speed in unison – there’s nothing more oddly satisfying to watch than this rhythmic diving and breaching of hundreds of dolphins all synched up in the WILD! Nobody trained them to do this – they are just this fantastic! The dolphins were quickly followed by four blue whales that we got some really good looks at and we saw a fluke from almost every dive!
Naturalists,
Melissa, Vanessa & Alison
