Cruise: Pacific Coast in Fall - Recap
Participants had many opportunities to see Black-footed Albatross; in particular, on our first day where we had just over a hundred of these elegant beauties cruise by our ship in one hour's time!
Exceeding our expectations, we had a little under 500 Buller's Shearwaters on the cruise. One of the prettiest seabirds out there, its silvery plumage was always causing us to exclaim our delight!
One of our best cetacean trips in recent memory, we had 12 species of whale and dolphin with some of the highlights being 12+ Blue Whales, Sei and Bryde's Whales, and a couple pods of Baird's Beaked Whales including one herd repeatedly doing full body breaches out of the ocean. Fin Whales were particularly common, and we saw many dozens of this species rather well.
We were lucky enough to see two of these rarer shearwaters where they caused quite the flurry of excitement as they were a lifer for most participants. Thankfully they showed well and people were able to get a satisfying tick with these birds!
Again a lifer for most everyone, we saw a few of these warm-water Mexican breeding alcids, thankfully they were cooperative enough to show us the small patch of white in front of the eye separating them from their sister species Scripp's Murrelet. In all we saw nine species of alcids, lots of Rhinoceros and Cassin's Auklets, but goodies like the aforementioned Murrelets as well as Tufted Puffin.
Sometimes seabirds land on ships at night and we were pretty amazed after seeing a few swimming in the ocean to find out about this Guadalupe murrelet right under the staircase near us. It was safely gathered up for a few photos and then successfully released back into the ocean!
Typically the star of our spring cruises, we were lucky enough to see a couple of these striking looking Pterodroma petrels on the fall cruise. One of them even came by for a close pass, allowing for some good looks!
It was a fantastic jaeger and skua trip! We saw just over 20 South Polar Skuas, and well over a hundred jaegers, with Long-tailed Jaeger being the most frequently seen.
Pinnipeds were frequently encountered, even in the deep off-shelf waters. Northern Fur Seal was most commonly encountered, but we also had Guadalupe Fur Seal, Elephant Seal, California Sea Lion and Harbor Seals.
We had several pods of dolphins come in and bow-ride the ship. Most were Common Dolphins, but we also had a few pods of Northern Right Whale Dolphin, White-sided Dolphin and Dall's Porpoise.
