THEY’RE BAAAACK! We had a few days there where we were wondering just how long this blue whale season was going to last! On both of our trips today we were able to see multiple blue whales!
Seas of mercury greeted us this morning, with no wind whispering its way to the shore the sea conditions were surreal! Grey skies aren’t always the best out there – but when they aid in bringing us these dreamy conditions, it’s hard to complain. Pretty quickly we sighted a minke whale under terns but we knew we had little time to spare if we wanted to get out to where the giants hang out so we kept cruising. The blues are still trucking back up from Mexico but they’re within range! We got about 4 miles from the Mexican border and managed to sight 5 blue whales, 1 of which we got some pretty close views of!
We headed out to the same area on our afternoon trip, sighted a few more blues. We got some interesting information from another boat – there were two research vessels out in the blue whale zone! These vessels were out attaching temporary acoustic recording tags onto there blue whales. Scientists trying to gather as much info about blue whales as they can! It’s always a treat to observe the cutting edge of marine research! We got lucky with the blues on this trip as they gave us some great flukes before diving. The shrieks of joy from all the passengers after a good fluke are a highlight of our days out here!
Do you baleen in life after love??? I can feel something inside me say, I really don’t think you’re blue enough! On our sunset trip, we travelled southwest towards the 9-mile bank! Wildlife was a bit quiet at the beginning of the trip. However, once we reached about 11 miles offshore, we quickly found a plethora of marine mammals and other organisms. We first encountered a massive pod of ~30 offshore bottlenose dolphins! They were doing circles around our boat. Some of the offshore bottlenose dolphins were even leaping out of the water and creating massive splashes! Then, we encountered a spout which led us to seeing three separate spouts from 3 BLUE WHALES!! We saw one adult blue whale and a COW/CALF pair! The calf was swimming closely next to their mom. We also saw at least three tail flukes! We encountered a Mako shark and a Mola-mola while waiting for the blue whales to resurface. On our way back towards Mission Bay, we encountered a pod of ~75 long-beaked common dolphins. They followed us for a few minutes as they surfed in our wake. Always so much fun on the privateer, please join us soon!
Naturalist, Alison & Melissa
