Clear skies and calm seas greeted us on this fine, first Friday of December. We noticed a very high tide due to the king tides. At this time of year, we have even higher high tides and lower low tides because the earth is closer to the moon—perigee—at this time. Instead of 238,000 miles away, the moon is around 220,000 miles away, leading to a greater gravitational “pull” during the spring tides of the lunar cycle.
We enjoyed seeing the antics of the California sea lions at the floating bait dock. We did see hundreds of birds, including a lone black-crowned night heron, great egrets, Brandts cormorants, Brown Pelicans, Western and Heermann’s gulls. Just beyond the channel entrance, we saw about 10 Brant geese, a couple of red-necked phalaropes, black-vented shearwaters, an uncommon Cocos booby and a lone surf scoter.
Captain Michael brought us 10-miles offshore. Our first sighting was brief, but a rare species for these parts, the Pacific white-sided dolphin. Soon after, we saw the first of over 1000 Long-beaked common dolphins. From a distance, we could see the seabirds diving into the water, indicating a “bait ball”, a fisherman’s term for large schools of forage fish, likely the sardines and anchovies. We saw a spout from a humpback whale, then two spouts. We went further offshore and the whales seemed to increase, At one point we had 6 whales popping-up close to our vessel. One of our crew sent a drone up to get aerial photographs and video.
This was certainly one of the greatest Fall days for the number and proximity of humpback whales. They were intrepid, coming underneath our boat, pursuing their next meal. In your life, you don’t have too many days filled with so many animals, close and personal. Now is a good time to join us on a San Diego Whale Watch. —Naturalist Greg McCormack
The magic continues, Santa Ana winds have shifted our usual sightings around a bit but we aren’t complaining! This has been one of the best fall seasons in a long time! Hundreds of common dolphins were spread across many miles – we saw maybe 500 stretched out, almost as if creating a big unified sweep/ search of the area. They all came together hunting near the end, feeding on small bait fish. The evening finished off with a umback whale crushing south to Mexico through the last golden rays of suns light. We got just the right angle to see a firefalll off the whales tail as it went on a sounding dive. The drops of water slowly dripping off the whales tail as it lifted high to the sky, toasty orange light illuminating every last drop, looking like a lava flow into the sea.
Naturalist,
Alison
