Beating the heatwave with a cool sea breeze.
This record breaking winter weather has made for the most pleasant whale watching!
Sunny, hot and calm seas with great visibility is how we started out morning trip out on the Pacific where we encountered a very chill Sunday morning pod of ~200 long beaked common dolphins hanging out on the drop-off. They weren’t racing around too much or showing their incredible speed but lazily swimming along side the Privateer. Turns out dolphins like to sleep in on Sundays too!
In the area a spout was seen from a northbound gray whale. We watching it snorkeling and taking 1-2 breaths at the surface. But really it was just bee-lining north in travel mode.
After we turned back to the coast, the dolphins popped back up with a large bird pile of shearwaters feeding. So we enjoyed seeing some hunting behaviour too. A baby dolphin had the zoomies and was swimming in circles racing around the bow. It was adorable.
On our PM trip we started off with a brief sighting of a southbound gray whale, this poor straggler is late in the migration and a little shy. A private unaware boater crossed quickly over its path of the gray whale, likely spooking it and we were unable to relocate the whale. This is always a great reminder of why we practice responsible whale watching.
Making our way west a scattered pod of ~100 long beaked common dolphins showed up to surf with the Privateer.
As we crossed the drop-off big splashes were spotted towards the horizon where the best pod of ~300 short beaked common dolphins were popping off!
So many tail slaps and chin slaps and epic 15 ft in the air leaps.
This pod has so so many baby dolphins in the mix as well.
