TWO FIN TUESDAY! We had an awesome afternoon trip with sightings of two Fin whales and 200 Long-beaked Common dolphins! We cruised out to the west and in about 300-ft of water we spotted a massive columnar spout in front of the boat! We were stoked to see the second largest whale in the world! It was circling the area, first sighted going north, then east and then back south! We got some amazing looks and realized there were two fin whales in the area! One was smaller than the other and wondered if was an older calf with mom? The smaller one came up twice as many times as the older one and seemed to be more curious with the boat! On two occasions it popped up close to the boat! We also noticed it had cookie cutter shark bites on its side! We never saw them side-by-side but one of our last looks they synchronized their breaths! They both surfaced at the same time exhibiting their spouts! We waved goodbye to them and ventured south and spotted a huge pod of ~200 Long-beaked Common dolphins that suddenly began stampeding to the NW. When we finally caught up with them they raced over to bow-ride and surf in our wake! They took us north back to the Fin whale zone so we got to hang out with them for a few more cycles. Interestingly, once one of the whales surfaced in front of the traveling pod, they changed course and made a 90degree turn to the west! Seemed like they didn’t want to entertain any Fin whales today!
Inclement weather is coming and so we will be offline for the Christmas holiday! Hope to catch you when the seas calm down, hopefully by this weekend!
Naturalist,
Vanessa
