The conditions continue to be stellar out there. Warm and glassy. It’s nice to only need to wear a T-shirt out there. Today we had a large aggregation of humpback whales feeding together with about 300-400 sea lions. Incredible encounter.
Today was incredible. Conditions were perfect all day long. We had a group of five killer whales right out the gate. So that was great. They were in hunting mode. So they were being pretty stealth and not together.
Staying under a long time and coming up in different areas. We had some great looks, but decided to head out and do some exploring after about an hour with them.
After about 15-minutes of running, I could see small splashes a mile or two to the west. I got some glasses on them and saw we had an active group of Risso’s dolphin. So that was cool. These animals were splashing around, breaching, surging. Nice encounter.
Then there were humpbacks scattered all around the area. Mostly to the North a couple of miles. We started to notice some nice feeding aggregations. Like groups of 4-6. Glassy calm conditions made of perfect marine life viewing. I could turn the engines off and just float there. It’s nice to just hear nothing but the birds, the sea lions and the whales.
Fall conditions are really setting in. We had incredible conditions all day long today. On the 02:00 pm trip we were lucky enough to get on a handful of humpbacks that were engaged in some serious surface feeding behavior.
These things were coming up every 3-5 minutes with their mouths wide open. We call this vertical lunge-feeding. This is when these 45-foot long humpback whales chase schools of anchovies up out of the water with their gaping mouths wide open.
We also had great looks at Risso’s dolphins and common dolphins. We haven’t seen the common dolphins for weeks. So that was great to see them together with the Risso’s dolphins.
It’s quite a spectacle. They will usually expose their baleen, the roof of their mouth (palate) and their massive, pinkish throat pleats that are usually laden with barnacles. Their baleen is that finger nail and hair-like structure that hangs down from their upper jaw. They use it like a sieve to filter out fish and krill from the sea water when they lunge-feed.
We’ve had an incredible run of killer whales for the last five days. They’ve mainly been hunting sea lions. Upon closer looks at photo’s we’ve been taking, we also see that they’ve taken at least on Pacific white-sided dolphin.
I’m sure they’re taking harbor seals and elephant seals when they find those too. Beautiful conditions for morning and 02:00 pm trips.
But by the 05:00 pm trip conditions deteriated. It got pretty ugly out there. But we did come across a couple of lunge-feeders on the way in just outside of the Moss Landing Harbormouth. So that was nice.
We had reports early on of orcas just outside the harbor. So as soon as we left the harbor-mouth we made a course and headed to the orca action going on about ten-minutes out.
Turns out there were five of them picking off sea lions for most of the morning and into the early afternoon. And these were an active group. We had some really close swimbys.
Including a couple of young ones breaching next to the boat. At one point two of the younger ones were doing double breaches together. A fantastic encounter.
They would approach a large raft of sea lions and cause a sea lion stampede pretty regularly.
We’ve been having scattered humpbacks lately. But they’re putting a great show once we get to the right spot.
Early on we heard reports of feeding humpbacks just off the beach in Marina. But we wanted to at least get a couple of looks at a lone humpback feeding just outside of Moss Landing Harbor. We had a couple of ok looks, but after the first 10 minute dive cycle we decided to make a course for the 45 minute run to Marina.
It was a good call. We had a lot of feeding humpbacks, sea lions and birds. Also the occasional vertical surface lunge. I love turning the engines off and listening to all the mayhem. It’s quite a spectacle with all the birds going crazy, sea lions barking and whales blowing.
So that’s what we had in the morning. It was a little lumpy to get down there for the after noon trip. Plus we had a handful of humpbacks right out front and for a 2-hour trip it makes more sense to hang with what we had. We also had a nice breacher for the evening trip. So that was great. This thing breached 3-4 times right in front of the boat. I love when that happens.
Conditions were gorgeous for most of the trip. Forecast winds and storms were nowhere to be found in the morning, so we spent some time just cruising through scattered humpbacks feeding with sea lions and common murres just below the surface.
Another young chronic breacher. Photo: Sack, 09-05-2017
The we headed out further and encountered 100+ Risso’s dolphins, with a few pacific white-sided dolphins mixed in. Breaching and tail slapping from the Risso’s was accompanied by occasional bow-riding from the playful white-sided dolphins. So that was fun.
The most exciting part of our trip was just a bit farther west from the Risso’s, where we encountered a group of killer whales! One big male, a mother and calf, and another female were joined by three other killer whales over the course of an hour. Then the wind started picking up so we had to leave the killer whales and start heading back toward Moss Landing.
On the eight-mile ride back in we enjoyed sunshine, sea nettle jellies, and a few ocean sunfish! We even had a very quick glimpse of a mako shark’s dorsal fin.
A total of four cetacean species, jellies, interesting fish, lots of birds, a shark, otters, seals, and sea lions- what a day!
A massive humpback whale lunge-feeds next to our boat. Photo: Sack, 08-29-2017
Incredible encounter on the afternoon trip a couple of days ago. It was hard to leave. These things were feasting on anchovies at the surface for over an hour. When we left they were still going strong.
These things were feasting for well over an hour. I probably should have came back out after the trip. Photo: Sack
These things were feasting for well over an hour. I probably should have came back out after the trip. Photo: Sack
Double lunge-feed. Photo: Sack
I was bummed that my video camera malfunctioned so I didn’t get any great video. But I did manage to get some incredible stills. Luckily on the way in I figured out what was up with my video camera. So hopefully today we will get some more of this.