It’s Totally Tubular Toothed Whale Wednesday! We had a beautiful day hanging out with both Long- and Short-beaked Common dolphins! We found them off La Jolla beyond the drop-off! The smallest pod was about ~20 and the largest pod was about ~300 individuals! We had a fun time watching them race up to our boat to interact! We noticed so many cow/calf pairs cruising beside us! We leap-frogged from pod to pod as well headed to the NW. One of our most energetic pods was the Short-beaked Commons! They skyrocketed out of the water showing off their best acrobatics! On our way home we caught up with a few more pods! Non-stop dolphin fun!
On our sunset trip, we were only a few miles from shore and spotted a huge splash! The splash was so big we thought we spotted a whale breach so we zoomed over to the zone and we found a spread out pod of ~50 Offshore bottlenose dolphins! They were slowly traveling to the south and were seen socializing around our boat. Some bottlenose made a quick passes at our bow and behind our boat! We continued further out and spotted another smaller pod of ~25 Offshore bottlenose. This group was way more energetic and interested in us. We got some awesome views as they raced toward us! We were even lucky to observed them jump high out of the water. We continued out and noticed a lot of birds diving out in the distance! We encountered a huge pod of ~300 Long-beaked Commons dolphins! They zoomed about, chasing fish! There were a couple of nursery pods sighted as well! The sunset was so beautiful! San Diego has some of the best sunsets especially when viewed from the water!
We will catch up with you tomorrow for more wildlife updates!
Naturalist,
Vanessa
