It was majestic heading out to the glassy Pacific Ocean this morning for a wildlife-filled adventure.
Starting out with a decent-sized pod of ~20 Pacific white-sided dolphins in incredible water visibility! We could see them 20ft below the water.
Though that can be pretty shy and elusive, today they were boat-curious and playful, and we got to observe some “kelping” while they played in the kelp!
Following our dolphin discovery, there were spouts seen, followed by flukes! The first pair of humpbacks went down for a dive.
While we waited for them, a second pair appeared followed by a third, so 5 humpbacks in the area of less than a mile radius. These gentle giants lifted tail flukes nearly every dive and alternated with split dives and syncing up their breath cycles.
Our afternoon excursion was a private whale watch charter (keep us in mind for all your work celebrations), and the energetic humpback action we saw over the weekend kept thriving with 4 more humpbacks! Making for 9 for the entire day.
The cow calf pair we observed inside the 3-mile line put on an impressive show with tail throws and breaches with beautiful views of the coastline. It appeared the baby was having the most fun breaching over and over, but as soon as we made our turn toward the coast, Mom made the biggest splash breaching out of the water.
These whales have my vote.
-Naturalist Ruth
