We left Mission bay and cruised out to the SW toward the 9-mile bank! We noticed plenty of birds throughout the trip, with an outstanding number of Phalaropes! We sighted a handful of Long-beaked Common dolphins around 3-miles from shore that were headed south. While hanging out on the bank, we caught up with a subadult Fin whale that was circling the area! We were right on the border so we couldn’t stay long, but we got a few looks with it. The best view was when it was hanging out beside us and began to cross the bow! Before we got out of the area, a nice pod of ~30 Offshore bottlenose dolphins showed up and raced over to us! It was the cherry on top to our encounter at the bank! We continued home and enjoyed the smooth ride!
On our afternoon trip, we set out to the NW toward La Jolla. We spotted a small pod of ~10 Offshore bottlenose dolphins headed south! A few raced over to ride the bow! We got to the drop-off and followed that up the coast! We sighted a fun pod of ~250 Short-beaked Common dolphins just a couple miles away to the east! They were so fun and we couldn’t stop smiling due to their amazing energy! They leaped, porpoised and breached all around us. There were so many cow/calf pairs seen all around too! We sighted another pod of ~100 Long-beaked Common dolphins along the drop-off to the south and another sprinkling of dolphins outside of Mission bay!
The day was amazing and we can’t wait to do it again tomorrow! Hope to sea you there!
