We set out on our own adventure tonight and went where nobody else had gone all day — the north. We reached our favorite little nook off the continental shelf and pretty quickly found a huge feeding frenzy with hundreds of dolphins being tailed by the second‑largest animal on Earth.
We spotted the dolphins first… and then a much bigger dorsal fin.
The long‑beaked common dolphins were practically stirring up whirlpools as they herded bait into tight balls before launching a coordinated feast. This fin whale was every bit of 85 feet — it surfaced near our boat and logged at the surface a few times, giving us absolutely stellar views. Then it decided to jet off into a sunset that looked like a mushroom cloud, as if the sun were pouring molten light down onto the horizon.
(Surprise visitor, a male Hermit warbler that found us 8 miles offshore)
Naturalist, Alison
