[CINC] Ranger 85 Mon Jan 21st

[Pam Yerger]

I spent the day on Ranger 85 with 2 sold out trips.
AM:  5 grays including one cow/calf pair with newborn estimated 48 hours old by Captain Frank)        about 30 commons mostly in distance
PM:  300+ commons very spread out; many more in distance        pair of grays very illusive and skittish

The day was beautiful; winds near shore but calm and flat once outside the wind line.  the morning trip was short on close up dolphin views but we did see a very small group of sea lions swimming and diving alongside the boat.  the sightings consisted of a pair of grays, one lone gray and a most amazing display of an almost newborn calf with mom.  We were able to see the tiny baby almost on top of mom who brought it up numerous times for a nice show.  Captain Frank estimated the age at 48 hours give or take a day.  The baby was very dark with no markings or barnacles at all and it's cute little head popped up a few times to check us out.  We stayed with this pair as long as we could before heading home to pick up the afternoon group.
the afternoon was more difficult.  We finally found a pair of grays at the east end of Anacapa.  They were moving in a zig zag manner, staying down as much as possible and at times completely turning around and moving North.  Eventually they headed straight to shore and we thought they were headed back South along the canyon near Port Hueneme but they continued to move in a very erratic direction, never giving us a chance to predict where they might surface.  Wet raveled with them for about 7 miles as they headed closer and closer to the shore. The smaller blow alongside a larger one led us to believe we might have a cow/calf pair, but Captain Frank decided they were two juvies traveling solo.  Passengers did get to see the whales but not up close.  They were delighted anyway and despite the lack of grays they were treated to a great show by a large pod of commons which we followed and circled for almost 1/2 hour.  the pod size was difficult to estimate as you could see them spread out clear to Anacapa.
With it being a school holiday, there were quite a few kids on both trips.  The morning group had question after question and my collection of kids books on all things cetacean were a huge hit.  On the afternoon trip there was a 6 year old who had more information on megaladons than most scientists!  He was also quite knowledgeable about whales, dolphins and sea lions but had lots of questions anyway.  I asked him if he was the smartest kid in his class and he immediately said "No, I'm the second smartest in my class"!!
Captains Frank and Alex and Chef Paul kept passengers well informed and fed!!  Such a perfect day that not one single passenger was even a little green!  FANTASTIC DAY ON RANGER 85 with a mostly local group of passengers.
Pam Yerger


 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.rain.org/pipermail/channel_islands_naturalist_corps/attachments/20130122/a3324b98/attachment.html>