Looks like wildlife was also sleeping in today after Cinco de Mayo! The trip started off a little quiet but eventually we found some sooty shearwaters, black-vented shearwaters, elegant terns and some western gulls! We also saw ~4 Mola-molas and lots of Velella-velellas! We found an awesome pod of ~150 short-beaked common dolphins located 12.5 miles offshore. They were launching out of the water and having a blast! We have one more trip coming up so please stay tuned!
We had an awesome sunset trip with sightings of two pods of Long-beaked Common dolphins AND a quick view of a Short-finned Mako shark! Our journey began by pointing our nose to the SW. We thought we spotted a mola mola at the surface so we began to slow down, but realized it was actually a shark! Captain Brian got a great look at it and identified it as a Short-finned Mako! As we cruised by, it got spooked and swished its tail and zoomed outta there! We noticed some birds to the north of us with about 100 Long-beaked Common dolphins racing straight for us! They swam right by us so we circled back and cruised parallel with them. There were pelicans, terns, gulls, and shearwaters following the action! They seemed to be busy traveling to the south so we continued out to the SW. We crossed the drop-off and made it the 9-mile bank! We spotted a handful of big splashes out in front of us but never managed to catch up with the activity! By the looks of the sporadic large splashes, we assumed possibly Offshore bottlenose dolphin. We turned around and caught up with another pod of ~100 Long-beaked Common dolphin! They too were headed toward the SW like the last pod. At that point the sun had popped out and we were enjoying the beautiful sunset with moody clouds on the horizon! There were a couple teeny tiny calves porpoising next to mom! We spotted a California sea lion, a couple mola molas, and hundreds of Velella velella’s along the way!
Naturalists,
Melissa & Vanessa
