After a week of climbing up Yosemite’s El Capitan, I seriously could not have expected a more phenomenal “welcome back trip.” Flat seas, – glassy calm and windless – made it all too easy to find our first group of humpback whales (three in all). During some solid looks, we got a double breach from them! Miraculously, it was one of the very few times in whale watching history where EVERYONE on the boat saw it. After they settled down, we turned south to explore, quickly stumbling into a huge pod of around 300 Risso’s Dolphin. With tiny calves in tow, they breached, they surfed, and gave us a great show until we made one last lap out to the west, and found a megapod of Northern Right Whale Dolphin! Already a rare animal for us, it is even more rare for us to find them unaccompanied by other species. Lacking a fin, NRWD’s are essentially invisible from any distance. They too breached with babies, bowriding for long periods of time. It was incredible. Finally, the sand in the hourglass said with a final tink of the last grain that it was time to go home, which we did without incident. One and done, on a truly fantastic day at sea.
–Naturalist Isaiah
Photos by Naturalist Amanda
