I love San Diego Summertime!
Beautiful sunny skies, a light ocean breeze, mild swell on the infinite Pacific Ocean, the perfect way to spend the day with a majestic humpback! The Privateer made a long journey to the southwest slightly beyond the Nine Mile Bank to where a beautiful humpback had been seen earlier in the day. And we struck gold! Spending some time watching split dives and beautiful arches of its back, showing its flukes every dive!
We also enjoyed some “dolphin drive bys” hanging out with a couple small (about ~30 total) pods of long beaked common dolphins.
We have a sunset trip today so stay tuned for more fun.
The sunset trip was absolutely beautiful with awesome encounters of both Long- and Short-beaked Common dolphins! The sunset was glorious! We pointed our nose to the west and spotted two feeding frenzies with birds energetically diving into the water! Underneath there were Long-beaked Commons going for dives and popping up on all sides of our boat! We spotted plenty of juveniles and calves in both pods! In the second pod, there were some acrobatic males surfing and leaping in and out of our wake! We continued on toward the north along the drop-off and spotted our last amazing pod of Short-beaked Commons. They were launching out of the water breaching, porpoising, tail-slapping and chin slapping their hearts out! We even encountered a nursery pod of ~10 cow/calf pairs. The gray/blue skies had clouds that extended toward the west making it seem like it would never end. Over the evening, the sunset really lit up and went from golden orange to pinks and purples! The conditions have been so amazing, we hope you’ll join us for a trip soon!
-Naturalists, Ruth & Vanessa
