On the afternoon excursion aboard the Privateer we made our way only about 5 miles due west of Mission Bay to where a lot of activity was happening.
We started off with a dolphin drive-by briefly hanging out with ~400 long beaked common dolphins but he had our eyes on a bigger baleen prize, as we could see multiple spouts in the distance!
Spaced out in the area was a trio of humpbacks on the search for food! They individually met up with the dolphins trailing them to where the eating was good! We even got to see a vertical lunge feed! Everyone was so excited about it, crew included. This is a rare behaviour to observe off the coast of San Diego! That wasn’t the only exciting surface activity we observed, one of the humpbacks was showing off with a couple good tail throws!
We also witnessed 2 of the humpbacks syncing up their dive cycles and hanging out very close together among the dolphins.
The dolphins became interested in the boat and surfed with us for a while rounding out for a magical trip.
We’re out there again for the sunset trip with availability to join, will be catch up with the humpbacks again.
-Naturalist Ruth
