Welp, after 6+ years on the ocean – not much makes you scream profanities in excitement anymore. Today definitely did that. WE HAD FALSE KILLER WHALES!!! and a breaching humpback! BUCKET LIST DAY!
This afternoon we set to the west and within about 30 minutes we saw a HUGE SPLASH – so we went that way! Quickly located a pod of feeding dolphins accompanied by a juvenile humpback whale that was tail throwing and breaching over and over agin! At first – it was all from a distance but then – within 50ft from our vessel – MASSIVE BREACH! Whole body out of the water! We hung out with this breaching humpback, it’s buddy and about 250 dolphins for the whole trip!
On our sunset trip, nobody else was out on the ocean- nobody on the radio – starting from scratch. Then, a strange voice popped up on the radio – “ Dolphins boats! I have massive dolphins at 48/18!” We get there – NOTHING. So we cruise out west – saddened but hopeful to find more life.
After a few minutes of searching – massive splashes in the distance. We zoomed over to the COOLEST pod of False Killer Whales!!! They were cruising so peacefully up the coastline along the drop – We spent an hour hanging out with 50+ of these MASSIVE dolphins. They were bow riding, playing in our wake, munching on some massive squid, and breaching over and over again! The sunset was stunning, and these bulbous headed dolphins sliced through the glassy metallic sunset like butter.
Not sure I’ll ever emotionally recover from this magical trip! So grateful we get to share nights like these with all of you!
Naturalist, Alison
