We had a whale of a trip with sightings of a Minke whale, Humpback whale and a fun pod of ~50 Offshore bottlenose dolphins!
We started our afternoon trip by cruising out west getting to the drop-off. We spotted some splashes out there that led us to a curious pod of Offshore bottlenose that were mostly heading north. We were lucky the seas were nice and glassy so we got to see them swimming underwater even down 30+ feet below the ocean’s surface! We were hanging out with a nursery pod with over 7 cow/calf pairs. We continued up toward the La Jolla canyon and a Minke whale popped up beside us! We believe it was likely the same Minke we sighted on our morning trip because it had the same behavior with 5-min dives and only coming up for one breath. It was tricky one! We continued up the coastline and sighted a Humpback whale closer to the coast about 3-miles from shore! We enjoyed the beautiful spouts, the roll of its back and amazing tail! It was down for only 3-5 min and came up for 4-5 breaths! We loved watching it with the sunlight illuminating behind it. We waved goodbye and enjoyed the smooth ride home! A perfect trip!
Sunset started off with a run out to the drop off where we’d heard that some wildlife had been. We found a pod of long-beaked common dolphin feeding on bait. While we hung out with them, we sighted a spout off in the distance, it was MASSIVE! We set off to find it, saw the spout once more, then never again! A mystery whale. That’s part of the magic, as crazy as it sounds. If this was always easy, it wouldn’t be as special.
Naturalist,
Vanessa
