08-14-2013 Amazing Humpback Action plus Risso’s Dolphins

We had cloudy conditions to begin the day, but we immediately had whales right out of the harbor. We were with multiple Humpback whales and within the first minute, a large adult breached clear out of the water twice. It was a spectacular sight to start the day.

We spent some time with the Humpbacks watching them swim and dive and after awhile we headed out west to find some Risso’s dolphins. By this point the sun was breaking through and all the clouds were all but gone. We found a pod of about 40 dolphins and they got within a few feet of the boat. One dolphin decided to show off and breached 5 times, which was a fun sighting. We got word of a big pod of 500 dolphins so we left the pod and headed out to find the other dolphins. On our way we came across a 5 foot Ocean Sunfish who floated on the surface right next to our boat and we were all staring him in the eye!

We arrived shortly after with all the dolphins and floated in the middle of the massive pod. The dolphins surrounded the boat and you couldn’t look a long direction. They breached, tail-lobbed and did many other acrobatic tricks. After 20 minutes with the pod, we headed back towards Moss Landing to get some more looks at the Humpback whales. We found around 7 whales and one of them breached 3 times in a marvelous display. It was a perfect way to end a great day.

Breaching Humpback at Moss Landing Photo by Chase Dekker
Breaching Humpback at Moss Landing Photo by Chase Dekker

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