You’ve got to be squidding me! Our dolphriends put on a FINomenal show, all day long today! On our morning trip, we saw several scattered pods of long-beaked common dolphins. We encountered about ~200 long-beaked common dolphins found throughout the trip. We saw so many little calves, porpoising right next to mom and swimming closely in her slip stream. We also encountered a massive pod of ~50 offshore bottlenose dolphins. When compared to long-beaked common dolphins, these offshore bottlenose dolphins seemed absolutely MASSIVE! We saw some really large males breaching out of the water, creating giant splashes. They rode along our boat for some time and we got great looks all around the boat.
Our afternoon trip was also breathtaking! Great ocean conditions continued throughout the day, the sun also came out for our afternoon trip making the water seem so blue and clear!! We found an enormous pod of ~250 long-beaked common dolphins located north along the drop-off near the La Jolla. We hung out with our dolphriends for a good amount of time. They followed along as they surfed in our boat’s wake and rode the bow. The massive pod of long-beaks eventually split into two separate pods. We wished them whale and made our way back towards Mission Bay.
For the sunset trip, we were surrounded by Short-beaked common dolphins!!! 10 miles off shore, we had quite the experience in that perfect golden hour glow. From a distance, we saw little shimmers of light on the ocean surface. With a slow approach, we were able to confirm this species by the dark eyeliner around their eyes and their zippy behavior! Nicknamed the spaz attacks by Naturalist Brooke, we watched them zoom by the boat, breaching, chest slamming the water, chin and tail slapping as they put on a show. On our way home, we were lucky enough to encounter the other species of common dolphin, the Long-beaks, maybe 25 of them heading south. Another amazing day in the books here at SDWW.
Naturalist,
Melissa and Brooke
