Well, The whales woke up this evening – That’s in the second half of the post !
FEEDING FRENZIES in every direction!!! Our AM trip got some great looks at 4 humpback whales, 3 fin whales, and ~700 long-beaked common dolphins! The dolphins seemed to be our escorts to the whales, accompanying us the entire trip with their acrobatic breaching and leaping from the water alongside the boat. We began to notice large groups of seabirds on the horizon, and we soon saw many, many spouts of both fin whales and humpback whales! Some of the humpbacks began tail-lobbing at the surface, as well as lunge feeding. Conditions were super nice, and we have another sunset trip planned tonight and will update you soon!
Absolutely a once in a lifetime kind of trip! We were incredibly lucky, our friends at Adventure Whale Watch clue us into the location of multiple whales, and about 1000 dolphins as soon as we left the jetties of Mission Bay. When we arrived, we cited multiple spouts, but decided to hang out with one whale, which was incredibly familiar. Just a few weeks ago this whale put on one of the most incredible tail, throwing, and breaching displays any of us aboard had ever seen. There were scattered dolphins everywhere, stretching for miles no matter where we went. The dolphins followed so as we cruised along next to this whale, as it was just breathing at the surface, everyone was entertained by the playful antics of the Long Beach common dolphins. We almost left this whale, but we knew from the underside of its tail that it was a whale that at any moment was capable of incredible chaos. With the dolphins swarming around us, we enjoyed a pleasant cruise through the sunset until this whale started a breach-athon.
Each breach from a large bailing whale is estimated to cost about 44,000 cal which is the equivalent of what it cost one human being to run an entire marathon. This whale must’ve been trying to set a record because we stopped counting how many times it breached. The boat was a roar of laughter, shrieks of joy and utter bliss. We hung out with this one whale the whole time and at some point another small whale that had more than half of its flukes chewed off by orcas joined it. These two whales decided to travel north together for a while we came to the realization that we were running out of time. Eventually, we had to head back to shore, but we had a stunning sunset and glassy water conditions so we watched a molten golden ocean fade into a glassy mercurial glow.
Naturalists, Olivia, Vanessa & Alison
