We started off the week right with a Fin whale, over ~500 Common dolphins and two huge rafts of California sea lions!
We cruised out to the west and our first fun surprise sighting was a raft of ~15 California sea lions! They were in travel mode heading north in about 300-ft of water. We continued and found an even larger raft of ~30 California sea lions! They were swimming fast, but we got some fun looks as they hung out beside us for a moment. They popped up their heads to check us out before diving into the sea. We also spotted a small pod of ~100 Long-beaked Common dolphins that were heading north in gorgeous glassy water! We could see them dive down close to 20-ft below us! We continued on and beyond the drop-off we caught up with a super energetic pod of ~300 Short-beaked Common dolphins! We spotted their big splashes and they breached and porpoised about. We were cruising by and the select energetic ones raced over to us to ride the bow and surf in our wake! They were showing off for our amazing passengers who were elated to see them! Our next stop was the 9-mile bank and while just enjoying the views of the Coronado islands, a Fin whale surfaced from a dive pretty close to us! We got just a couple of views before it dove down after 4 breaths. It was a champion diver as it stayed down for 14minutes! We saw it again to the SW of us and watched it travel to the south. It went for another dive after 5 breaths and arched its back for another sounding dive. The next surfacing was way south about a mile away! We waved goodbye and enjoyed more Common dolphins on our way in!
We haven’t seen a Fin whale in about a month so we hope we have a nice peak in sightings before winter hits and they move out again!
Naturalist,
Vanessa
