It was a foggy day out there! We started the day with about 1/4 mile of visibility and then it slowly became about 1.5 miles of visibility. It steadily opened up for us making it easier to spot wildlife. We set out to the west and on the morning trip, we got out to the drop-off and spotted a small pod of ~10 Long-beaked Common dolphins. We set out further to the west and spotted another couple hundred Long-beaked Common dolphins. The waters were glassy which made it easy to see them swimming below our feet.
On our afternoon trip, we set out to the NW and spotted a pod of ~20 Offshore bottlenose dolphins! They were racing to the north along the drop-off. We got great looks as they surfed in our wake and rode the bow. We continued on and spotted more Long-beaked Common dolphins! They raced up to us and played around the boat. We spotted some cow/calf pairs zipping around the boat! There were around about 15 bait balls of anchovies seen all around us.
We have one more trip to go! We will be update you soon!
The fog continued into the evening, however, visibility improved as we travelled further offshore! At our furthest point we were about ~7.7 miles offshore! Our first wildlife encounter was found close to the drop-off, we found a spunky pod of ~100 long-beaked common dolphins! We hung out with this pod for a good amount of time and they led us in the direction towards our second pod of LB common dolphins! We saw lots of California Brown Pelicans and Shearwaters feeding on a bait ball with the LB common dolphins! Then, we saw something bigger!! We saw the smallest rorqual whale; a COMMON MINKE WHALE! We hung out with this minke for a pretty good amount of time, it was actually behaving quite curiously and would sometimes pop up on our port side or right next to our starboard bow! Once, we peeled off we found two more pods of ~50 long-beaked common dolphins. We also saw two hummingbirds, and one yellow-belled warbler during our trip! Sunday funday is tomorrow, so please stay tuned!
Naturalist,
Vanessa & Melissa
