Oh Baby! Our morning was filled with just that, babies – tons of em.
We found a pod of short beaked common dolphins just off the drop off, they appeared to be feeding as tons of Bonaparte gulls were there diving into and picking fish off the surface of the water. This pod had a nursery section, were all the moms and babies seemed to be hanging out together towards the outside of the baitball. We saw a baby so small, it was still dappled with oranges and pink splotches from being in mom’s womb. This baby’s dorsal was still flopped over to the side, not even standing fully upright yet, maybe just a few hours old. We spotted a baby mako shark as well, but it was gone so fast we missed the opportunity to snap a photo.
On our afternoon trip we spotted a handful of Inshore bottlenose dolphin hanging out at the mouth of the jetties! They beelined it for our bow and popped up behind us! We continued out to the west and spotted a puffy spout a few miles in front of us! It belonged to a Gray whale that was slowly traveling to the north! It came up for 3-4 spouts and went down for 5-min dives! We got to see its beautiful tail lifted as it went down for its sounding dive! Capt. John spotted a big splash to the west of us so we pushed out to go investigate! We spotted a Gray whale zig zagging toward the south! It didn’t go down for any long or major dives as it didn’t ever lift its flukes. We On our way back toward the coast we spotted a couple huge rafts of California sea lions! There was about 40 or so spread across three groups! Another couple inshore bottlenose dolphins greeted us as we cruised into Mission Bay!
On our sunset trip we caught up with those Coastal bottlenose dolphin at the jetties! They surfed in our wake! As we journeyed out to deeper water, we passed the drop-off and spotted a couple of spouts in the glare! We caught up with two Northbound Gray whales! They were traveling close to each other giving us great looks! They even synched up their spouts! We noticed a third taller spout to the NW of us about a mile out. We kept tabs on it while the pair of Grays took us to the whale zone! Long-beaked Common dolphins were seen everywhere we looked! They raced up to us from all angles! Some bow-rode, while others surfed our wake! We left the Grays and focused on THREE Fin whales! There were two that were swimming together while the third followed closely behind! We think we were hanging out with a cow/calf pair! While sitting in neutral, watching their fast movements, they began to turn TOWARD us! We got amazing looks! We noticed on our echosounder there was a whale shaped marking that went under our boat! Then just moments later, one of the Fin whales popped up on our port side! Then the other surfaced just seconds later! It was incredible to witness such friendly Fins! We couldn’t have asked for a better encounter, when the two Grays we were hanging out with earlier caught up with us! We waved goodbye to our new whale friends and spotted more Commons on the way in! We enjoyed the warm glow of the sun setting behind us as bottlenose dolphins played all around our boat!
We are excited to head back out tomorrow! Come join us for a WHALEY great time!
Naturalists,
Alison & Vanessa
