We hung out with a Survivor today!! A southbound Gray whale was sighted on our trip today and we noticed in the photos that it had rake marks on its tail flukes! Killer whales (Orcas) will often bite the tips of these migrators and leave rake marks (“bite” marks) on the tips of their tail! The Gray whale was large and healthy looking! It was observed within half a mile from shore and spotted by Captain Brian, right out of the gate! We enjoyed watching it come up for 3-5 breaths with 3-6 min dive times! It lifted its tail almost every time it went down for a sounding dive! With the calm textured seas, we could clearly see its fluke prints appearing one right after the other! We waved goodbye and continued out to the west and caught up with a big pod of ~200 Short-beaked Common dolphins! They breached, porpoised and raced over to check us out! We even saw some tiny calves near by! They were mostly headed southbound. On our way in, just outside of the Mission bay jetties we sighted a big spread out pod of ~40 Pacific white-sided dolphins! Beautiful, striking dolphins that raced toward us to ride the bow! They seemed to circle and dive down likely indicating feeding behavior!
We hope you’ll join us for a trip soon! Conditions are beautiful!
Naturalist,
Vanessa
