What a difference a day makes. Today was one for the record books. The variety of marine species we encountered was just phenomenal.
The sightings started out early with a 400-pound Mola Mola (See photo at right). These are one of the oddest creatures we see out here. They are also known as “Sunfish” because they pretty much just lethargically float at the surface and soak up the sun. They move very slowly, if at all. We used to see these animals a lot on the Monterey Bay. Now we only see them once in awhile. The one we saw today looks like it either was hit by a boat or was on the wrong end of a cruel sea lion.
Then there were the Pacific White-sided Dolphins. What a show they put on. They looked liked they could have been trained at Seaworld and escaped. These wacky critters were continually launching out of the water doing flips and twists in what appeared to be a successful attempt to entertain us. It was really something to see. Then, later in the trip, we came across another pod of Pacific White-sided dolphins that bow-rided and buzzed the boat for at least 30-minutes.
We had to go out about 10 miles before we got into whales. But once we were out there, there were more humpbacks deep feeding together than we have ever seen. We were observing groups of 6-10 humpbacks surfacing, porpoising and fluking together within a few feet of each other. There were probably 20-30 animals within about a one-mile area with the occasional blue whale or two steaming by heading to the west.
The highlight of the trip for me was to see a massive blue whale throw up it’s massive tail fluke just before a deep dive. Truly an amazing sight to behold.
On the way in we came across a small pod of Risso’s dolphins that included what had to be a newborn. This was the cutest thing we’ve seen out there. The little guy was only about two and a half feet long!