What FIN-tastic day on the water! We hung out with Fin whales and Common dolphins on BOTH of our trips today!
The afternoon trip was one for the books! We zoomed out to close to 11-miles from shore and started to see a massive bird pile! Thousands of birds were diving in the water! Once we got closer, we spotted a tall, columnar spout! We were stoked to see such a massive spout in the midst of all the activity! There were also at least 400 Long-beaked Common dolphins surround the area, chasing fish. We got amazing looks as they all zoomed over to us to hang out! We spotted several cow/calf pairs! We caught up with not one but TWO Fin whales that were traveling together! We watched them swim side-by-side within about 10-20 feet of each other! At one point they started to cross our bow to head toward the dolphins and in doing so SPED UP! We watched as water crashed over their head as they BURST into travel mode! We got the best looks at their diagnostic characteristic, the lower right white jaw! We even got to see one of them POOP! Whale poop is the oceans’ natural fertilizer!!
On our sunset trip, we knew we had to head back out to the hotspot zone! We endured the bigger swells and got just a couple miles from the drop-off. That’s when we noticed a very large, whale-sized splash! We saw it again and again and then spotted a tall spout! We found a Fin whale being surface active! More Long-beaked Common dolphins raced in and we got great looks as surrounded our boat. We jumped from pod to pod, encountering at least 1000 dolphins over 5 different pods! We were just about to turn around when a passenger sighted a spout about a mile from us! We were excited and turned around. We got our best looks at the Fin whale as it was following a pod of Common dolphins to the SW. It was only down for about 5-min dive times! We waved goodbye as it went for a deep dive! We spotted a couple more pods of Commons on our way home! The sunset was the cherry on top!
We hope you’ll join us soon! The wildlife seems to be perking up!
Naturalist,
Vanessa
