It was so beautiful and calm out there! We sighted two species of toothed whale today! To start the trip off, we spotted a cow/calf pair of Coastal Bottlenose dolphins! They were headed into Mission Bay! We observed them feeding just outside of Mariner’s cove! We set out to the west toward the drop-off. We followed the contour to the north and caught up with a pod of ~100 Short-beaked Common dolphins! They were very slowly traveling to the north. They popped up all around us allowing us some awesome looks! We could see some tiny calves leaping next to mom! Halfway through our encounter, they revved it up and turned on the excitement! Some began launching out of the water and zooming quickly to the north. We continued to the north and spotted a Mola mola, and a few sea lions. Just outside of the Mission bay jetties, in 60-ft of water, we spotted a couple more Inshore bottlenose dolphins!

We will be updating you on our next trip!

Our sunset trip was fun filled and action-packed! 🙂 We found 3 pods of ~150 long-beaked common dolphins! We immediately found them outside of the jetties and they led us all the way to the drop-off! Sea surface conditions were immaculate and we had the best visibility so the dolphins were very easy to see for miles and miles! After hanging out with the LB common dolphins, we saw larger splashes created by offshore bottlenose dolphins! An average pod of offshore bottlenose dolphins is usually about ~15-20 dolphins, however this pod consisted of at least ~50 offshore bottlenose dolphins! They were being very active and leaping out of the water and tail-throwing! The sunset on the way back in towards Mission Bay was absolutely breathtaking. We’re looking forward to more salty ocean fun coming up tomorrow!

Naturalist,
Vanessa & Melissa

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