whalenerds

WHAT A DAY! Yesterday our two trips hit the diversity jackpot! We saw 6 species total, including the second ever confirmed SEI WHALE sighting in San Diego history! If that wasn’t enough we also saw Minke Whales, 4 species of dolphins, and one unique looking baby Risso’s Dolphin! One of the most encouraging signs that the fall season is about to heat up is the THOUSANDS of Long Beaked Common Dolphins feeding on anchovies. Pretty soon they’ll be joined by Humpback Whales in the feast, and we have a feeling our first local Humpback of the Fall is coming in the next couple days! In the meantime we’ve had Bryde’s and Minke Whales around so it’s a wonderful time to get on the water!

"In Antarctica some populations of Humpback whales work together to trap krill inside a net of bubbles before scooping them up from below. When viewed from above, the Fibonacci spiral is revealed. I can tell you that it’s hard to operate a drone with tears in your eyes!"

A weekend of incredible sightings on our 8hr trips was capped by a remarkable encounter with Cuvier’s Beaked Whales: one of the most elusive and mysterious cetaceans on earth! This is some of the only drone footage ever taken of this species, and it was an amazing moment for everyone involved! Initially 12 of these yellowish-brown whales appeared as we were waiting for one of the many Blue Whales that we had been observing to surface 70 miles offshore! After a 30 minute dive, half a dozen Cuvier’s returned to the surface with chunks of squid right next to our boat! The water depth was over 6,000 feet in this location, which is nothing for a Cuvier’s as they are the deepest diving animal on earth, capable of reaching depths nearly TWO MILES below the surface! In our 4 Extended Trips we ran this weekend we encountered over a dozen different Bryde’s Whales and an uncountable number of Blue Whales, but nothing compares to being some of the few people on the planet to spend time with Cuvier’s Beaked Whales! While most of the whale action was 70 miles offshore this weekend, there was quite a few Bryde’s Whales working their way towards San Diego, and even a handful of the Blue Whales were headed eastbound towards our local waters as well, so we’re hoping for a big finish to the summer! We did have a Blue Whale on our 2.5 hour trips on Saturday afternoon! Video by Captain Domenic Biagini Stay tuned later this week to see video of an absolutely amazing encounter we had with 4 Bryde’s Whales on Saturday!

On our way north heading up the coast of Baja California we were greeted by hundreds of bottlenose dolphins. Incredible sight to see! They were surrounding our ship just having a great time with some jumping out of the water and others bow-riding in front of our ship. A truly spectacular moment to be able to experience. 🐬 🐬 🐬

These energetic dolphins frequent the Southern California coast, it is thought this is the densest population of dolphins anywhere in the world! Their misleading name makes them seem lackluster, but we promise there’s nothing “common,” about them. We love them with all our hearts! 💙🐬 Have you ever seen a giant pod of common dolphins? Let us know how many you think we’re in the pod below!

These behemoths were once decimated by the whaling era as whalers often killed down the “whale chain.” Meaning they’d start with the largest whales (blues) and essentially decimate a population until it was nearly impossible to find an individual whale. They’d then move down to the next largest (fins) and so on. The end of the whaling era can be attributed to a number of effects. The movement, new technologies replacing the need for whale blubbers and oil, and the fact that it just got increasingly harder to find whales to hunt. With federal and international protections placed in the 70s and 80s whales have since made a remarkable recovery from the brink of extinction. Although their population of around 10,000-12,000 is much larger than their population after the whaling era, it’s no where close to the 350,000 estimated before the whaling era. Hopefully as populations continue to rise and these animals are further protected, we will see them slowly creep towards that higher number! 🐋

and then how we became whale nerds! - We’re recording tonight leave us with some questions below! ❤️