We saw a very new baby gray whale! And it was adorable.
All the action was close to the coastline today, neither the 12pm trip and 3pm sunset whale watch went further than 5 miles from Mission bay but we saw a great variety of wildlife!
Shortly into the 12pm trip, a large heart-shaped spout was spotted followed by the tiniest little spout that at first made me wonder if it was a dolphin, but the unmistakable colour and shape of a baby gray whales back appeared out of the water, the lack of dorsal fin confirmed we had a cow calf pair making their way to Mexico. Presumably a couple weeks old at the most it was riding Mums slipstream and snorkeling just below the surface. They were hugging the coastline and making short dives as we were in less than 80 ft of water!
Simultaneously, we were spotting by an active pod of ~15 pacific white sided dolphins porpoising through the glassy water. White sided dolphins can be elusive and sneaky but we got some superb looks at them being playful!
It felt like a special trip on the water with 2 rare sights today.
On the 3pm sunset trip, I spotted a spout before we were even out of the jetties!
Less than 1/2 a mile from Mission bay a larger spout was seen where a humpback showed up surprising all of us being that we were on the gray whale highway.
But being true to its name (gray whale highway), a gray whale was spotted at the same time heading south!
The same pod of ~15 pacific white sided dolphins came to hangout with the whales and started bow-riding the gray whales head!
Always cool to see inter species interactions.
We ended the trip with a beautiful sunset and a handful of inshore bottlenose dolphins escorting us in the jetties back to the dock.
