The whales are here! All sorts of them! Our afternoon trip was lucky to see a pair of grey whales on their migration south to Mexico from Alaska, Bering sea, & Chukchi Sea. This is the longest migration of any mammal, can range from 10,000 miles to 14,000 miles round trip! One of these whales has a stark white spot on its right side just behind its pectoral, we recognized it from years past migrations! It’s wild and such a gift that we start to develop relationships with these truly wild animals over the years. Our sunset trip was a race against nature herself. The sun was racing down below the horizon, the fog bank was racing north and we were racing both to provide the best experience possible. We sped up to the north into La Jolla canyon to thousands of sea birds swarming the sky. Under the birds were a feeding pod of long beaked common dolphins, they played in our wake for a bit – UNTIL Capt. John spotted a tall columnar spout! A fin whale! Just a mile off shore! We got some good looks before rushing back to shore – racing against the densest fog I’ve ever seen roll in to San Diego. The sun was waning from the sky, it was getting dark and we had maybe 60ft of visibility! Grateful for our skilled skipper who got us safely back to shore despite not being able to see ANYTHING except the radar read out.
Naturalist,
Alison
