The seas were up and so were our spirits! We were excited to out on the Pacific to find wildlife today! On our sunset trip, we caught up with two fun pods of Common dolphins! Right of the bat, we sighted a bunch of birds diving only a couple miles from shore just outside of sunset cliffs. There were about 250 Long-beaked Common dolphins cruising to the north. They were’nt to busy to come and say hi! We watched as they raced up to the bow and surf in our wake! With the bigger swells today, we could see them surfing those waves as well! They were spread out over a half mile and continued up the coast as we went SW. We got the drop-off and followed that for a bit to the south before we hooked it out to the 9-mile bank. We spotted shearwaters, terns and plenty of storm petrels nearby flying in and out of the waves. We got to 14-miles from Mission bay and hooked it to the north. Out in the distance we spotted some splashes that after awhile realized they were more Commons! There were ~250 Short-beaked Common dolphins launching out of the water, breaching, porpoising and playing in the big waves! We had encountered an awesome and probably the largest nursery pod we’ve seen in a long time! It was so funny to see the little flying “footballs” or calves doing their best to keep up with their mommas! They continued to the south while a few escorted us toward the coast. The cherry on the top was the beautiful sunset! The sun peaked out from under the dense cloud cover and went back down beyond the marine layer formed on the horizon!
We hope you’ll join us for a tour soon!
Naturalist,
Vanessa
