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
