No Shortage of “Shorties” today!
Our Memorial Day Monday Morning excursion took us out to the west with splashes galore from scattered but acrobatic pod of ~300 short beaked common dolphins! Spring and summer is best time to see baby dolphins, and the pod today was no exception.
On our afternoon trip with a complete packed boat we followed a continual stream of shearwaters to the northwest which payed off with not one but 3 humpback whales scattered around La Jolla Canyon! There were times we didn’t know which way to look with all humpbacks popping up in all directions. The whale we spent the most time with was taking a single breath at the surface then diving again just for a single minute.
Closer to the coastline a wall of water seemed to be moving, but it was a stampede of short beaked common dolphins!
Stampedes are not a common sight to see but always exciting to see wild animals being wild.
We ended the trip with a handful of inshore bottlenose dolphins guiding us in the jetties.
– Naturalist Ruth
A trip for the books! We had the TRIFECTA today! We sighted three different species of whales all feeding in one spot! We caught up with a BREACHING Minke whale, also a curious Fin whale and a feeding Humpback!
Our amazing passengers experienced a very nautical trip! The wind picked up in the afternoon, combined with big swell made for a splashy trip! We cruised to the north and off La Jolla we hit the jackpot! We sighted some birds out in the distance so that was our goal, but then Captain Michael spotted a huge splash on the horizon! Once we finally caught up with it, multiple spouts appeared in front of us! We were stoked to see the Minke do a twirl in the air and breached multiple times! We usually see Minke’s do belly flops when they go airborne, but this one had style! The Minke was also a stinky one! Over and over, we could smell its very bad breath! We watched a hungry hungry humpback circle around the hundreds of Long-beaked Common dolphins that were feeding! Hundreds of shearwaters, pelicans, and gulls circled the area also feeding on small schooling fish! The Fin whale became curious and we got an amazing look as it cruised beside us only 50-ft from the port side! The sunset was incredible and we were escorted by the common dolphins as they surfed the big waves!
Hope to catch on the next trip soon!
Naturalist,
Vanessa
