We had beautiful, calm seas all day long with plenty of Common dolphins sighted everywhere!

We started the day cruising out to the west! Beyond a huge Navy ship, we could see thousands of birds diving in the water! Underneath was a massive pod of Long-beaked Common dolphin! They were slowly traveling to the south along the drop-off. We hung out with them as they enjoyed surfing our wake! They beelined it to the bow with great speed! We spotted many cow/calf pairs! We heard there was a Humpback whale sighted to the south of us, so we zoomed over as fast as we could to catch up with it. We got to the zone, but it gave us the slip! We enjoyed the smooth ride in.

On our afternoon cruise, we set out toward the drop-off. We were excited to see the Common dolphins in pretty much the same spot but this time were traveling to the north, very slowly! There were a lot of birds around, but they seemed to have calmed down and were mostly sitting on the water. We enjoyed the Common dolphins all the same! They were a little more active as they raced alongside the boat! We got the best looks!

We spotted inshore bottlenose dolphin, harbor seals, and California sea lions along our journey!

A MEGA POD of common dolphins awaited us on our evening tour, these long beaks raced around our boat and porpoised full speed towards the bow to catch a ride. Somewhere between 600- 800 dolphins surrounding our vessel made us feel right at home, part of the pod. A fiery sunset lingered in the sky as we headed back towards land!

Naturalist,
Vanessa & Alison

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