March 26: Isla Todos Santos and offshore

posted 3/26/2010

Hello all,

Today was our first day and after a quick visit to Ensenada, we went to Isla Todos Santos. The island is green and yellow with all the Coeopsis blooming. We saw all the usual suspects on the island, sea lions, harbor seals and elephant seals. Oystercatchers, gulls, pelicans, commorants and a single peregrin falcon. We headed south and saw lots of bird life. For something different this trip we saw lots of bonopartes gulls with some in breeding plumage.

We saw a good size herd of short-beaked common dolphin and we spent some time with them,everyone enjoyed seeing our first cetacean.There were a few pacific white sided dolphin mixed in as well.

Unfortunately we did not see any northbound gray whales. We expected to see a few as we normally do but not today.

Later on we chummed some fish oil and popcorn and we saw balack footed and layson albatross along with several shearwaters and northern fulmars. It was a good day of sightings. The weather was windy but sunny skies.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Capt Art