We had an amazing day with sightings of both Gray whales and Common dolphin! On our morning tour we set out to the west and spotted some fun feeding frenzies with ~50 Long-beaked Common dolphins corralling bait to the surface! A couple of California sea lions popped up in the mix. There were some California brown pelicans dive bombing straight into the water and coming up with mouths full of fish! We continued out to the drop-off and got surrounded by dense fog! We had anywhere between 1/2 to 1-mile of visibility. We lucked out as a single Common dolphin raced up to our boat to bow ride! We circled the area and spotted more scattered dolphins popping up all around us! After reaching La Jolla, we continued in and hugged the coast hoping for a Gray whale! We were pleasantly surprised to see a small puffy spout not too far from our boat! It was a Northbound juvenile Gray whale! We got a couple looks and even a nice lift the tail as our wave goodbye!
On our second trip, we zoomed straight up the coast taking in the beautiful coastline views! We spotted many birds diving in various spots likely feeding. We also had a handful of California sea lions sighted along the way. We caught up with that single juvenile Gray that was headed back up to Alaska! We got the best looks as it came up for 2-3 breaths, and then snorkeled near the surface! We could see the beautiful turquoise glow as it cruised to the north. We even got to see its tail flukes raised high in the sky! We spotted a few Long-beaked Common dolphins on the way home!
I got a feeling’, woo-hoo, that tonight’s gonna be a gray-t night, that tonight’s gonna be a gray-t night! On today’s sunset trip we caught up with scattered long-beaked common dolphins. We saw about ~150 long-beaked common dolphins throughout the trip. They being a little elusive and did the disappearing act on us a couple times. However, we consistently had dolphriends throughout the trip! Then, we heard of some interesting activity up near La Jolla so we headed out in that direction. On our way back, we found a TRIO of gray whales located ~3 miles offshore! We got to see them lift their tail flukes a few times and saw so many adorable heart-shaped spouts! ❤ Tomorrow is Sunday funday on the Privateer, please come join us!
Naturalist,
Vanessa & Melissa
