No two trips out there are the same and sometimes – it just feels like the ocean is playin games with us! This trip was a perfect example of that! We headed straight out of the jetties and found a small feeding frenzie of long beaked common dolphins, who came to ride in our wake while taking breaks from hunting small fish. We found these so close to shore that we decided to head further off shore – We made it way off the drop off before we had a very brief visit from a fin whale! We observed it come up for a single breath before a dove. We were waited around for 20 minutes and never saw it again. Luckily, while we were waiting for this whale to resurface, we sighted some splashes off on the horizon, which turned out to be a massive pod of offshore bottlenose, leaping out of the water and rocketing themselves 20 feet in the air. These dolphins are massive, nearly thrice the size of the common dolphins we’re so used to seeing, it’s always incredible to see them bow riding, and playing in our week, but the best is when they’re jumping out of the ocean like popcorn on hot pan. Sooner than seemed possible we ran out of time searching far off the coast, so we headed towards the jetties. Merely one and a half mile before we were set to make landfall we cited a pair of humpback whales and extra special pair of cow calf or mother and baby humpback whales sticking just to the kelp line along Point Loma. As we re-entered the jetties, we even encountered some coastal bottlenose so a total of three species of dolphins and two species of baleen whales.
We never know what’s gonna happen out on the ocean so get out here and let us show you!
Our sunset trip was tranquil with super glassy sea conditions! We also had the best visibility the entire trip. We could sea for miles and miles! We headed up northwest towards the drop-off. Then, Captain John spotted a spout from a fin whale! He spotted it from a few miles away so it took a little bit of time to catch up with the fin whale, however we could see the tall columnar spout so easily because of the awesome sunset lighting. It popped up near our port bow once and went down for a long dive. It was acting a little elusive so we wished it whale and continued on our journey! Then, we caught up with a great pod of ~40 offshore bottlenose dolphins! They were leaping of of the water and riding along our bow. It was so beautiful to watch them play around in such glassy water! Sea tomorrow for another whale watching adventure!
Naturalist,
Alison & Melissa
