We began our morning trip with a sounding of our horn, as several sea kayakers were crossing our bow and blocking our way to the bait dock. Captain Brian gave us excellent views of our feathered and flippered friends. We all had the opportunity to practice our photographic skills by getting close-ups of the entertaining sea lions, herons, egrets, gulls, cormorants and pelicans. We were all excited about the sunny weather, as we have had a lot of the June gloom of late, a temperature inversion in which the cool ocean cools the warm, moisture-filled air that crosses the cold California Current and condenses, forming a marine layer. Our first sighting included a boisterous pod of Long-beaked common dolphins. We saw cow-calf pairs, bulls and at least 1000 dolphins cavorting, foraging and jockeying for position off of the bow where a pressure wave pushes them forward for a “free ride”. Next, we found a huge Mola mola or ocean sunfish near the surface. This was followed by a pod of Offshore bottlenose dolphins, much larger in size than the common dolphins. The ocean breeze felt so refreshing, the visibility was excellent and we covered a huge search area. This trip we could not find a spout from a baleen whale. As many of you know, it is our Blue Whale season, which runs from late May to early July. Because they are endangered with extinction, they are not seen everyday, so do give it a couple more chances and book another trip sometime soon.
On our afternoon trip, it was almost identical to our morning trip for dolphin sightings seen thoughout our voyage. Instead of one ocean sunfish, we had two large sunfish together at the surface. The largest boney fish in the world, the sunfish or Mola mola can grow to over 2000 lbs by consuming jellyfish. After a short diversion for our “fish watching tour” we continued due west and found another pod of friendly playful dolphins. Everyone seemed to enjoy these social mammals as they kept coming back to play on our bow wave. Throughout the tour we saw many hundreds of gull relatives, the Elegant and Common terns. The gulls are opportunistic feeders, following dolphins to pick-up the leftover, discombobulated fish injured or half-eaten by the dolphins. Gulls can also be pirates or parasitic as they harass the terns and shearwaters to the point that they cough-up, give up or regurgitate their hard-earned meal to the gulls. We came back to what seemed like a parade of various vessels in the Mission Bay Channel and Quivira Basin, including SUP, jet-ski, sea kayak, small fishing boats, RHIBs, yachts, sailboats, etc. Come join us for a three hour tour soon, that’s right, a three-hour-tour. -Naturalist Greg
