What do you call a whale who knows all the secrets of the sea?
-A whale-informed individual!
Today, we had such an action-packed day from start to FINish! The trip started off with us finding an awesome pod of ~5 inshore bottlenose dolphins just outside of the jetties! Then, we headed up northwest towards La Jolla and encountered several scattered pods of ~100 long-beaked common dolphins. The dolphins and birds led us to a beautiful heart-shaped spout from our favorite winter friend- a gray whale! We hung out with the gray whale for a few breath cycles, it was going down for ~4 min dives! The gray whale popped up super close to our port bow showing off its barnacle covered body! We even saw a tail lift at the end! Then, we headed up further out west towards the drop-off, we had dolphins escorting us all the way out towards the drop-off the entire time! In ~700 ft of water, we saw a massive spout from TWO fin whales! The fin whales were circling us for a while and then another fin whale popped up behind us! We hung out with the trio of Fins for a few breath cycles and had long-beaked common dolphins hanging out and surfing in our wake the whole time! It was rad to so much wildlife out on the Pacific Ocean today! The cherry on top was another pod of ~5 inshore bottlenose dolphins leading us back to Quivera Basin. Please join us for more ocean fun tomorrow!
Naturalist,
Melissa
