06-01-2012: Breaching Humpbacks, Pacific White-sided Dolphins, Risso’s Dolphins, and the Blue Whales Show up

Humpback whale breaches just off of our starboard bow. Photo: Sack, 06-01-2012

Major turning point over the last couple of days. Summer whales are here. We’ve had several sighting of fin whales earlier in the week and then we had some nice Blue Whale sighting over the last couple of days. Then there’s the Humpbacks. They’ve been very active lately. Breaching, lunge feeding, pectoral fin slapping, tail lobbing, tail fluking and friendly behavior.

The dolphins round sightings nicely. We love when the Pacific White-sided dolphins come around. They can be very acrobatic. They are also very fast and tend to buzz the boat and swim back and forth in front of the bow. Today we had them riding alongside the boat “porpoising” while leveraging the energy of our wake. When a white-sided “porpoises” it’s generally moving very fast. Sometimes they come completely out of the water when they launch off our wake as they speed along.

We also saw Risso’s Dolphins today. It looked like both the Risso’s and the Pacific White-sided dolphins were feeding together in the area.

We’re definitely into the summer whale season. We still have a very light load for Sunday and things are looking good.

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *