We made some new Dolph-Friends today!
We set out to the west and spotted a few scattered pods of Long-beaked Common dolphin! They were mostly traveling north, but we caught up with them and they were a so fun! We LOVE Commons! They are always around and super playful with the boat. They surrounded our boat and surfed in our wake and played up at the bow! We spotted many cow/calf pairs! We found ourselves close to 10-miles from shore and spotted some big splashes! We had found Offshore Bottlenose dolphin! They were racing to the north! We got great looks as they popped up beside us and even leaped 7-ft high! We spotted a couple babies! We hung out with a few Mola mola too!
On our afternoon trip, we went to the northwest this time. We sighted a bunch of birds diving in the water just outside of Pacific Beach. They were mostly terns but we got to see them pick up sardines and carry them off! Long-beaked Common dolphins were swimming below them and we got great looks as they traveled beside us. We got lucky and hung out with more little ones along the way. We observed about 130 Long-beaked Common dolphin in all. We pushed out to the NW, got to 10-miles from shore and then went south. We found a couple Mola mola’s along the way!
We have one more trip to go!
Our sunset trip consisted of beautiful ocean conditions, three different species of toothed whales and a strawberry sherbet sunset! We encountered our first pod of ~30 long-beaked common dolphins hanging out close to the jetties. Then, as we were going over the drop-off in about ~750ft of water, we encountered a very widespread pod of ~200 short-beaked common dolphins! They were leaping out of the water and catching some air! We continued out west and sighted a pod of ~25 offshore bottlenose dolphins located about ~11 miles offshore! We even saw adorable little offshore bottlenose calves, they were swimming closely next to mom. The fun never stops of the Privateer, we’d love to have you guys on our next ocean adventure!
Naturalist,
Vanessa & Melissa
