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2016 Tour 1 offshore Ensenada and Islas Todos Santos

Hello whalewatchers: Our first day of the 2016 season was pretty exciting! We found plenty of life: common dolphins, pilot whales, and four different kinds of baleen whales: gray, humpback, a single minke, and several fin whales. One humpback whale gave us a breaching show too. It was a glorious day for weather with calm seas and almost no wind. And to end the day, we enjoyed a wonderful sunset with a green flash.
More tomorrow, Team Searcher

2016 tour1 pilot

A pilot whale surfaces and shows a distinctive dorsal fin.

2020-07-15T16:34:49-07:00February 9th, 2016|Trip Reports|
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Tour #2 Sea of Cortez at its finest! Feb 17

Hello whalewatchers,
We enjoyed the Sea of Cortez at its finest with great sunny weather, calm seas, and the best conditions for spotting you can imagine. We saw 15 blue whales, two fin whales, 6 Bryde’s whales, two dwarf sperm whales, which means we can add another new species to our trip list. There is a tremendous amount of sea life and bird life. It just doesn’t get much better.
More tomorrow,
Capt Art

p.s. As promised, a photo of Kogia (dwarf sperm whale) taken by Chef Charles Howell. These animals are hard to spot and even harder to photograph!

Dwarf sperm whale surfacing

2020-07-15T16:35:24-07:00February 17th, 2011|Trip Reports|
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Tour #2 Fin and Blue whale morning Feb 16

Hello whalewatchers,
We began today with another spectacular sunrise with wonderful light on one of my favorite parts of the peninsula. After pulling the anchor we came across a pair of fin whales and we followed them closely for and had tremendous looks. Fin whales with the peninsula in the background was beautiful. It didn’t take long to come across a few blue whales–5 or 6 total–including one that was fluking. We also saw the example of the Vermilion Sea (another name for the Sea of Cortez) with large areas of red krill on the surface. We spent a couple of hours with the blue whales.
We left that area for a large area of pelicans, boobies and gulls diving. There were miles and miles of birds diving and surprisingly, no whales or dolphins. We did see a humpback finally and a fin whale in the distance. It was great to see all that life in just a morning.
More later,
Capt Art

2011-02-21T16:47:42-08:00February 16th, 2011|Trip Reports|
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Tour #2 Isla Santa Catalina and whales, whales, and more whales!

Hello whalewatchers,
What a day we had today! It started out with a great sunrise again, the lighting on the peninsula was tremendous. The group went ashore early and had great hike. The crew went over on a mission to find a rattleless rattlesnake and found two. (Attached photo is taken by Hilary Thompson) They marked the spot for the rest of the group and everyone got a good look at one. Then there was a snorkel for those interested, and Kaptain Kenny’s Koastal Kruise for those who preferred that. Pretty krazy! Then there were Chuckwagon Cheeseburgers in Paradise for lunch!
We went offshore and despite a little wind and swell, we had a great show with a Bryde’s whale cow and calf, and once again we had a playful calf that breached and flopped around. We were able to keep track of them since they were right on the surface the whole time. After that we had a group of common dolphin and then a big group of bottlenose dolphin that performed for us.

We saw some whales in the distance and on our way there, we spotted some small whales that we thought might be more bottlenose dolphin but they turned out to be false killer whales. These are fairly unusual for us to find so we are thrilled! There were about 40 animals along with a fin whale too. We stayed with them for about an hour and decided to put the hydrophone in the water. We were able to pick their squeals so that was pretty cool too.

False killer whales

The whole afternoon the crew and the naturalists were seeing whales in a couple different directions and so we went over to the peninsula and found two big blue whales feeding and one was a fluker.
Holy smokes! What an afternoon! Four blues, four fins, two Bryde’s, 40 false killer whales, 100 bottlenose dolphins,  50 common dolphin, and the possibility of 1 humpback.
Incredible and all in one day in the Sea of Cortez.

We are staying around this area tomorrow, and I can’t wait for the morning,
Capt Art

2020-07-15T16:35:25-07:00February 15th, 2011|Trip Reports|
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Tour #2 Bryde’s whales Feb 12

Hello whalewatchers,
Well this afternoon was very productive with plenty of whale sightings. We got great looks at a Bryde’s whalecow and calf along with 4 or 5 other Bryde’s whales. We also spotted a few humpbacks, and at the end of the day we had a good look at a fin whale cow and calf. The cow was a really big fin whale and the calf was pretty young.
All in all we had a great day offshore Bahia Magdalena, with the weather and the whale sightings..
The sunset was great again and we are looking forward to tomorrow.
Capt Art

2011-02-13T07:30:34-08:00February 13th, 2011|Trip Reports|
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Tour #2 Feb 8 Islas Todos Santos and offshore

Hello whalewatchers,
We started our trip with some great sightings before we got to our first destination of Islas Todos Santos. I hope this an omen for things to come on this trip! We saw our first whale right after leaving our Mexican clearance in Ensenada, and it was a blue whale! I don’t recall seeing blue whales this far north at this time of the year. After a while we lost track of the blue whale as the conditions were very gray with the early light and overcast. We saw another whale and thought it might be the blue whale, but it was a fin whale and so we spent time with the fin. We had great looks at both whales and that was before 8 am.
We travelled to Islas Todos Santos and saw some pinnepeds: northern elephant seals and harbor seals. There were also oystercatchers and nesting brown pelicans .
We left there and started south. We soon came across a group of Risso’s dolphins and had great looks at them. Travelling a little further south, we saw another smaller group of Risso’s.

The highlight of the afternoon was an area of surface feeding fin whales. One group of five whales in particular stayed at the surface for a long time and we had them close to the boat. They were feeding on the big balls of krill. There were hundreds of Cassin’s auklets in the area too.  We had to break off and continue south to keep to our schedule.
We did see a small group of short-beaked common dolphin, a red-billed tropic bird and a laysan albatross in the distance.
What a remarkable day for our first day! Looking forward to tomorrow at Islas San Benito.
Capt Art

2020-07-15T16:35:25-07:00February 8th, 2011|Trip Reports|
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Tour #1: Jan 24 at Islas Todos Santos and southbound

Hello all,

Wow! What a tremendous start to our 2011 natural history season. We had calm seas, no wind, and sunshine–just a glorious day.

We stayed really busy all day. Right after leaving Ensenada Harbor, we ran into about 1000 long-beaked common dolphin and as we approached Islas Todos Santos, we saw a fin whale and a pair of gray whales. The island is really green from all the rains earlier in the year. There were about 15 northern elaphant seals visible–one large male and some females with pups. There were harbor seals too.

After leaving the island we followed four gray whales for a while, and continuing south, we came across fin whales–about 15 individuals with some surface feeding involved. There were Risso’s dolphin and more long-beaked dolphins. That was all by lunch time!

Travelling south we saw a small group of short-beaked common dolphin and then during a green flash sunset, we saw a large group of short-beaked common dolphin.

The birding was a little slower, but along with the fin whales there were 100’s of Cassin’s auklets and with the common dolphin, an occasional shearwater. We also saw a few black-legged kittiwakes and red phalaropes. What a start! People asked what we can do for an encore and I can just tell them we are just getting started. There is plenty more to come.

The forecast looks great for the next few days. Check back tomorrow when we report from Isla San Benito.

Capt Art

2011-01-24T18:19:43-08:00January 24th, 2011|Trip Reports|
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