Our fearless guests showed up despite a heavy mist, a gray morning with persistent drizzle. But the “June gloom did not deter our intrepid whale watchers. We got some looks at a fishing vessel offloading thousands of anchovies—bait fish—at the floating bait dock in Quivira Basin. The egrets, herons, cormorants pelicans and gulls looked excited while the California sea lions basked in the liquid sunshine at the end of the dock an on top of the buoy. Soon, we entered the ocean and traveled out to the 9-Mile Bank way offshore. We heard a shout from some of our keen observers from the top deck that they say two spouts. We waited 6-minutes and sure enough, a Blue Whale showed us its bluish gray back. Suddenly, the whale most have gotten word that food was a couple miles further offshore, as it was clocked at 10-knots, practically porpoising to the West, creating massive splashes as its rostrum slammed down on the water surface. After several minutes, it slowed down, allowing for some excellent views. We could even see a few of the dark 10-inch long remora fish attached to the back of the massive whale. They play a role in eating dead skin and skin parasites off the whale. In return these small fish have a habitat to live on and they get some leftover poop and vomit from the whale. So much excitement for getting a hard-to-get species and so much to be grateful for, as we joined the few that have ever witnessed in the wild, the largest animal that has ever lived on our planet. Please join us and bring a friend on a future trip as our blue whale season has just begun.
The ocean was beautiful with small waves and little wind! We caught up with the California sea lions on the bait receiver in Quivira basin on our way out. There were some little pups and juveniles being very playful jumping in and out of the water! We continued out to sea and headed west. We spotted a couple more sea lions and several sea birds that were in travel mode. We spotted Terns, California Brown Pelicans, and a couple shearwaters. We hung out with a fun pod of ~20 Long-beaked Common dolphins! They seemed to find us! They raced up to us and began to ride the bow and surf our wake! We realized it was a bachelor pod with several large males powerfully porpoising beside us! They even tail-slapped a few times! We continued out west and covered close to 25-miles but it was very quiet! We have another sunset trip coming up next so we will be searching the seas for baleen and toothed whales! We will report back!
Naturalist,
Greg & Vanessa
