We had two amazing trips with sightings of Offshore bottlenose and Long-beaked Common dolphins!
On our afternoon trip, we cruised out to the SW toward the 9-mile bank. Plenty of birds like shearwaters and California brown pelicans were sighted flying to the south. We ventured on and spotted some splashes and dark dorsal fins to the west! We encountered an awesome pod of ~75 Offshore bottlenose dolphin! There was a nursery pod within the larger pod and those tiny calves were adorable! We had great fun looks at a rambunctious little nugget! It leaped, porpoised and breached about! We found them about 11-miles from Mission bay so we continued back in and enjoyed the beautiful Pacific. The clouds cleared and we were graced with sunshine!
On our afternoon trip, we pushed out to the west once again. After passing the drop-off we spotted some big splashes! We encountered a big pod of ~200 Long-beaked Common dolphins! They were headed south and then turned around and went west. We realized why when we found a huge feeding frenzy! There were hundreds of birds diving and feeding on small schooling fish! The birds were entertaining to see pick up fish and fly away with their reward! We could see the bait balls bubbling to the surface and the Commons slice through to take their meal. We bounced from feeding frenzy to the next observing some fun acrobatic behaviors like tail-slapping and breaching. We kept cruising to the north and spotted another pod of larger dolphins! This time, we found a huge pod of ~100 Offshore bottlenose dolphins! They were traveling fast to the south in a long spread out line. We got amazing looks at a nursery pod with about 7 cow/calf pairs! They all jumped out of the water, porpoising and keeping up with the rest of the group. We were excited to see all the energy they were putting out!
We have one more sunset trip, Alison will be back with updates soon!
Naturalist,
Vanessa
HOLY GORGEOUS! Man it was nice to have some sunshine out there today! Our sunset cruise had calm seas and some stunning glassy conditions! We found a pod of probably 400 short – beaked common dolphins. The shorties were leaping high and in the brilliant sunlight , we could see them spanned out for miles! Some goofy babies were leaping out of the water and wiggling around like lil fish outta water. We saw a massive mystery splash off on the horizon but were never able to relocate it, but we enjoyed a nearly endless sunset with low hanging stratus clouds and gorgeous crepuscular rays peeping through.
Naturalist,
Alison
