Whale, hello friends! It is Sunday Funday on the Privateer! On today’s morning trip, we travelled out west towards the drop-off and encountered ~200 short- beaked common dolphins! They were hanging out with a ton of shearwaters, mostly black-vented shearwaters. However, we also saw several sooty shearwaters as well! Sooty shearwaters undertake one of the longest migrations, traveling over 40,000 miles annually! We started to travel north along the drop-off and encountered another pod of dolphins. This time, we sighted ~100 long-beaked common dolphins! It was fun to see both species of common dolphins on one trip! After hanging out with the long-beaked common dolphins, we sighted two Minke whales!! Minke whales are the second smallest baleen whale, second after the Pygmy right whale. Minkes are the smallest baleen whale belonging to the rorqual whale family; same family of baleen whales such as Fins, Humpbacks and Blues! These two common Minke whales came up for several breath cycles, they typically do not display a significant spout when coming up. They circled our boat a few times, getting great looks on both sides of the boat.

We had a whale of a time on our afternoon trip! We travelled very very far out west to find a Blue whale!! At our furthest point, we were about 12.7 miles offshore! We hung out with the blue whale for 5 breath cycles, we saw it lift its tail flukes 4 times!! Only about 10% of blue whales lift their tail flukes so it was a real treat to see their flukes four times in a row! We got incredibly close up looks and could really see the beautiful blue glow illuminated from the blue whale! We have one more trip coming up so please stay tuned!

Naturalist,
Melissa

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