Gorgeous day on the water!
It felt like lake Pacific heading into the ocean on the Sunday 9am trip,
Minimal wind and warm sunny skies typical of this January we have been experiencing, also typical of this January of Gray Whale season was how quickly we caught up with wildlife!
Shortly after departure we saw splashes and was surprised to see a mixed pod of ~50 Long beaked common dolphins and Pacific white sided dolphins. They were hanging out with the boat and lead us to a single southbound gray whale.
After a couple of breath cycles we switched it up and headed north to find a Cow calf pair of gray whales!
This might have been the cutest calf of the migration (Though I might be biased). We got to enjoy this surface active little nugget spy hopping and checking us out as much as we were watching the pair.
On the 12 Pm trip we found a one breath wonder, a gray taking a single breath and going down on a dive again, but beautiful flukes on each dive.
We changed directions and went out towards the drop off where the glassy water took us to a pod of ~100 Long beaked common dolphins! Best pod I’ve seen of them in a week or 2! It was so clear we could watch the 20ft under the water and the school of fish they were chasing,
An unusually and unique experience of these dolphins!
-Naturalist Ruth
