[CINC] Tuesday, March 13 IPCO

[JOANNA GUTTMAN]

March 13, 2012, IPCO Afternoon Whale Watch

 

3 Gray Whales

Feeding frenzy: ball of bait fish (sardines), 300 common dolphins, 100 sea lions, 100 pelicans, 100 cormorants, 300 sea gulls

30 passengers from Main, Chicago, Toronto, and locals.

 

We found the three Gray whales pretty early in the trip.  All looked mature.  They were headed north at a steady pace. We had some nice fluke displays.  The sea was so flat that we could see for miles and couldn't see any other activity, so Captain Dave took us along the east side of Anacapa.  It was interesting seeing the many small caves and the eucalyptus grove. We did the usual trip around the arch to see the sea lions hauled out on the rocks.  On our trip back to the harbor we altered our course slightly to go to an area where there was a lot of sea bird activity.  We got in the middle of a true feeding frenzy.  There was a large ball of bait fish, so thick that the water was black except when there was a flash of silver bellies.  It seemed that they were trying to use the boat and the boat's shadow to evade the 300 common dolphin and almost as many sea lions that were pursuing them. While this drama was taking place along side and under the boat there were about a hundred pelicans diving just a few feet from the boat.  There were even more cormorants diving from the surface and Western Gulls were trying to scavenge the scraps and steal fish from the pelicans.  As I said, we were in the middle of frenzy.  The frenzy was playing out both above and below the surface of the water.  All the passengers felt they had been a part of a National Geographic film.



IPCO crew: Dave, Luke, Andrea.  CINC Naturalists: Laura Shelton and Joanna Guttman

 

 
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