What a turn of events! We never know what were going to find out there but for one trip to have nearly a thousand dolphins – to the next looking like a barren oceanic desert. This morning we had a two hour long dolphin escorted adventure with very little time spent without wildlife. First we found a pod of long beaked common dolphins, and as we continued northwest – they followed along with us and lead us to MORE AND MORE dolphins the entire way! As we headed back towards land we sighted a very playful pod of bottlenose! We caught up with them and got some great looks. Always love seeing the size difference between commons and bottlenose. Our second trip seemed as if the entire eco system out there went to sleep. Not even one single sign of life.
On the sunset trip, we found dolphins again! Just a couple miles from the Mission Bay jetties, we spotted a huge pod of ~200 Long-beaked Common dolphin! They were swimming fast to the north! Some of them zoomed up to us and rode the bow and surfed our wake giving passengers some up-close looks! We spotted some teeny tiny calves in the mix! We are always delighted to see such an active pod that loves to interact with the boat! We continued out to the drop-off and a mile out, we spotted some splashes. At first, there were a couple of Bottlenose sighted, then after spending some time with them, more surfaced everywhere! We traveled about 4-miles out to the 9-mile bank and the entire time we were hanging out with offshore Bottlenose Dolphin! We estimated it to be around ~300 in total which is HUGE considering our average pod size to be around 40-60 individuals. One hundred Bottlenose dolphins is a big pod for us here in San Diego! We had some energetic Bottlenose dolphins that splashed the bow and leaped up over 20-ft high at the bow! We watched them into the stunning sunset!
We can’t wait to see what’s in store for tomorrow!
Naturalists,
Alison & Vanessa
