We started our Sunday with glassy Seas and great passengers and so much wildlife!
Making our way to the drop off we found a small pod of ~10 short beaked common dolphins which lead us to a cow calf pair of fin whales! The dolphins briefly started to bow ride the adult fin whales head.
The calf was pretty curious about us and came up and checked us out.
Another fin whale got curious about us and popped up in the area.
While we followed the whales along their trending course, some tall dorsal fins were sighted with a large pod of ~75 risso dolphins and they were intermingling with a pod of ~40 offshore bottlenose dolphins.
The Risso’s had a handful of babies within their pod and surfed along with the Privateer with their bright blue glows.
At one stage all the Risso’s raced off and popped up around one of the fin whales still hanging out nearby.
As we made our way towards the coast again a pod of ~10 long beaked common dolphins showed off their speed and agility porpoising out of the water to bow-ride.
But we weren’t done with our dolphins yet, and ended the trip with a pod of ~20 pacific white sided dolphins!
This made for a 5 different species of dolphin trip!
It felt like an Easter egg hunt of the nature variety.
The action continued on our afternoon trip catching back up with the pacific white sided dolphins surfing our wake. We took our trip to the drop off and up to the La Jolla canyon where a large fin whale was switching between split dives and deeper sounding dives.
We have a sunset trip today and more wildlife to find.
-Naturalist Ruth
