[CINC] Late posting from Sunday, Nov. 13

[Catherine French]

On the return trip from my weekend on Santa Cruz Island, we were treated with close up views of 50 Risso's dolphins, just as we were leaving Scorpion Landing. The squid are in and so are the Risso's!

Then just about three miles off the coast of Ventura, we witnessed a huge feeding frenzy of birds, common dolphin, three humpback whales and one minke. The humpbacks did some close to the boat lunge feeding and the passengers, crew and me all went "oh, wow!" at the same time as we could see the baleen plates of two of the whales. This behavior continued for twenty minutes or so with our being able to see all three humpbacks come to the surface in unison with gaping yaws.

As we left for the harbor the behavior continued behind us. We expect that some birds were swallowed in the process as they didn't all fly away before the lunging whales surfaced. Yikes. It was a memorable experience shared with Capt. Lee, Joel, Steve S., Luke and Pancho.

Calm seas,

Catherine French

Writer, naturalist, mentor
805.570.0432
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