A beautiful morning greeted crowds of outdoor enthusiasts, from us whale watchers to the hundred or more outrigger canoes participating in a regatta in the Mission Bay Channel. Spectacular colors and shouts from the cockswain mixed with the din of gulls. We saw Nearshore Bottlenose dolphins in the channel as well. We went WNW off of Point LaJolla into some of the overcast marine layer to find a pod of 250 Common dolphins. We could see mothers with babies, breaching, porpoising and high speed chases for fish. 1000’s of shearwaters, gulls, pelicans and cormorants marked the area where the dolphins were found. On our way back, we found another boisterous pod heading out towards the feeding frenzy and baitball of fish, a sure meal for the hungry odonticetes or toothed whale dolphins.
We had two more AWESOME trips! On our afternoon trip, we zoomed to the south and and caught up with ~600 Long-beaked Common dolphins that were split into a few different pods! Out in the distance there were so many more dolphins to the south, with an estimated ~2000 in total! They were friendly and fun! We spotted a pair of Humpback whales that were following all the Common dolphins! One the humpbacks had a beautiful bright white tail that seemed to be very energetic! We observed it tail-lob several times! The Humpback had a darker tail and was a bit more mellow, but did show us a couple tail slaps! All the action was ~12 miles to the south only half a mile from the Mexican border!
On our sunset trip, we had such an amazing energetic group of passenger that were excited to see the largest animal on the planet! We traveled ~14-miles to the west and caught up with a small pod of ~40 Offshore bottlenose dolphins that were showing off by leaping and porpoising! They raced over to us to check us out! We cruised over and caught up with a single Blue whale that was up for 10 or so breaths, before going down with the most epic view of its tail being raised! We could see its towering 30-ft spout and the nice arch of the back too! We had limited time with it, so we were so grateful we got to spend two cycles with it! To top it all off we enjoyed a stunning sunset!
We hope you’ll join us soon! It’s been so beautiful!
Naturalists,
Greg & Vanessa
