We had a Magnificent Monday with two species of toothed whale spotted throughout the day!
On our morning tour, we set out to the NW. We got to the drop-off and continued to north. We caught up with a big pod of ~300 Short-beaked Common dolphins traveling west! It was a tight-knit pod that porpoised in sync! We enjoyed watching the cow/calf pairs! We observed them swimming alongiside pretty much surrounding our boat!
On our afternoon trip, we set out to the west and spotted a big pod of ~350 Long-beaked Common dolphins at about 3-miles from shore. We got great looks as they bee-lined it for the Privateer! We watched them breach, tail-slap all around us. There were terns following them, and we observed a small feeding frenzy with a visible bait ball at the surface. We could see active feeding as the Commons corralled the fish working them to the surface. We continued out to the west, reaching almost 12-miles from shore at our farthest distance. We did get lucky and spotted about 20 Offshore Bottlenose dolphins! They were pretty playful with us bow-riding, tail-slapping and going under boat! We noticed a couple individuals with interesting coloration and lots of rake marks (scratches from other dolphin teeth)!
And wow, another beautiful sunset to close out our day here at SDWW! Out of the jetty, we headed south-west where we quickly came across a fun pod of roughly ~50 Long-beaked Common Dolphins! This pod was showing signs of hunting- turning on their backs and showing their white bellies. Working together as a pod, we witnessed many chasing after fish. The cutest cow and calf pair in the mix too seen leaping out of the water together! We came across another pod of 50 Long-beaked Commons more relaxed surfing off the bow with excited passengers! Captain Bryan spotted a rather large sunfish, or mola-mola! Great shot of it’s long top and bottom fins and googly eyes! The sunset melted into the horizon as we headed back towards Mission Bay.
