We were SEA-riously blown away on today’s afternoon trip! We quickly found an awesome pod of ~150 long-beaked common dolphins. They were swimming alongside the America and then came over to check us out! They were stampedeing, surfing in our wake and having a whale of a time swimming alongside the Privateer! We peeled off and continued traveling north just within the drop-off. There was a bit of fog coming in from the west. The anticipation of finding a baleen whale was krillin’ us softly! After a few miles of peaceful silence on the water, we finally spotted a a dorsal fin, back and distinctive hump near La Jolla. However, the humpback whale did not display a spout! We spotted a few more common dolphins, about ~10 long-beaks and then we saw a big bushy spout from our newly made humpback whale friend! Right off the bat, it gave us a MASSIVE TAIL THROW! We thought the humpback was going to be a bit more active on the surface of the water. However after a few breaths, it went down for a dive and gave us the slip. On our way home we found a massive bird pile with hundreds of sea birds and caught up with a raft of sea lions. We also saw a Mola-mola and lots of Velella-velellas throughout the trip. More ocean fun coming up tomorrow, please come join us on another salty adventure!
Naturalist,
Melissa
