We had a FIN-tastic afternoon trip! We caught up with a cow/calf pair of Fin whales hanging out with a huge pod of ~200 Short-beaked Common dolphins!
We left the Mission bay jetties and spotted a single inshore bottlenose dolphin on our way out. Then we spotted a very brave juvenile Harbor seal! It hung out at the surface staring at us! lol It dove and then popped back up again behind us! We spotted a gull hanging out next to a thermoregulating Mola mola. It was resting at the surface giving us the best looks! We continued out toward deeper water. We cruised to the NW and then to the west and then back down to the south. The ocean was very quiet with very little bird activity even! Finally, we spotted a spout to the SE of us! It was awesome to see it with two pods of Common dolphins! There were terns diving around them indicating they may be feeding. Initially, we thought there was only one Fin whale but then spotted two fluke prints appearing side by side! After waiting more than 10 minutes, they both surfaced at the same time! We could see mom was so much larger than her calf and also had a very tall prominent dorsal fin! The calf was lighter in color with a small dorsal fin. They began speeding up and lunging at the surface, almost porposing a couple times! It’s not behavior we are used to seeing so it was exhilarating!
We are going out again for the sunset so come out if you can!
What the fluke?! Our sunset trip was a tad bit tricky in terms of baleen whale sightings. However, we enjoyed beautiful ocean conditions the entire trip and had awesome visibility as whale. We found several pods of ~100 short-beaked common dolphins scattered throughout the trip. They were leaping out of the water and surfing in our wake. They seemed to be more interesting in feeding down below on some baitfish! They were sighted ~10 miles offshore in ~1500 feet of water! The cherry on top to FINish this Whaley awesome day was the beautiful sunset and GREEN FLASH at the end! We have more salty fun coming up tomorrow, please join us on the water!
Naturalist,
Vanessa & Melissa
