We had the sun burning through the marine layer and eventually prevailing with sunny skies on this afternoon trip. Mild temperatures in the low to mid 70’s, feels like air conditioning for those from hotter climates. At the Mission Bay Channel entrance, we had a brief encounter with a pod of 6 Nearshore Bottlenose dolphins.
We went west and southwest today to the 9-Mile Bank, a deeper water area where some upwelling occurs, the rising of cool, nutrient-rich waters to the surface, which is sequestered by the autotrophs, the base of the food chain, such as the Diatoms, the phytoplankton that gives us 50% of the oxygen that we breath. They are consumed by the zooplankton, which is consumed by secondary consumers such as krill and forage fish, which in turn are consumed by tertiary predators, higher up in the food chain. Technically it is more like a food web, in which many things eat each other and become food for others.
We had one pod of Common dolphins and several pods of Offshore Bottlenose dolphins. What was interesting is that the Bottlenose dolphins weren’t feeding, as we noticed no birds coming to get any of the discombobulated, half-eaten fish associated with foraging. Instead, our dolphins were involved in courtship and pair bonding behavior, exhibiting highly ritualized behaviors such as high, arching jumps, lob tailing, high-speed porpoising and intermingling with other dolphins. We saw hundreds of dark, pelagic seabirds known as Sooty Shearwaters that fly in from their breeding grounds in New Zealand to forage in the Eastern North Pacific Ocean off of California during the northern hemisphere summer. Hope you are all having a Whaley good summer, have a great Fourth of July and that you join us on a whale watch soon.
We had a WHALE of a trip for the sunset tour! We caught up with ~900 Long-beaked Common dolphins and a Humpback whale! We started our trip off right with a sighting of a small pod of about 4 Inshore bottlenose dolphins. They went on dives as they seemed to be feeding! We continued out out to the SW and once we got to the drop-off we noticed some birds and splashes to the south of us. We caught up with a huge pod of ~400 Long-beaked Common dolphins that were very playful! They zoomed all around our boat! We barely got to the Nat Geo scene when a Humpback popped up in front of us! We were so excited to see it surface all around our boat. It wasn’t really going in any one direction as it seemed to following the dolphins. We got really good looks a couple times as it surfaced right next to our boat! We were so happy to see its tail flukes multiple times! We waved goodbye and continued out to the NW and spotted the other half of the pod we saw in the distance earlier. This pod was about ~500 individuals that were breaching and porpoising! We spotted plenty of calves in the mix! The lighting as the sun was going down was so beautiful! We couldn’t have asked for a better trip!
Hope to sea you on a trip soon!
Naturalists,
Greg & Vanessa
