Dear whalewatchers:
Today we woke to the sunrise on the red sandstone cliffs at Punta Colorado at Isla San Jose. After breakfast, we had a nice arroyo walk through desert plants and interesting geology, and found some blooming shrubs, birds and reptiles.
Then a snorkel session cooled everyone off. We found nice fishes and some people got to try their hand at snorkeling in a large cove with many underwater boulders for the fish to congregate around.
We headed off to look for whales and it wasn’t long before we found two pairs of blue whale cows and calves. We watched these animals for over two hours. They were very relaxed and afforded some great looks at this giant cetacean species–nice to see the youngsters.
Then we made our way north past Isla Santa Cruz and encountered a large group of pilot whales. There were several large bulls, a few calves, and we spent some time at sunset watching and listening to them swim closely past the boat until sunset.
We were seeing some red-billed tropicbirds, storm petrels, blue-footed boobies and yellow-footed gulls throughout our travels today.
We’ll anchor at Isla Santa Catalina tonight and have plans for some more hiking, snorkeling, and whalewatching tomorrow.
Capt Art
