Prolific Pacific

Naturalist Melinda Nakagawa posted this trip report from last Saturday. (All whale photos are courtesy of passenger Joseph Chung, who wasn't aboard last Saturday but came aboard a couple of weeks ago and photographed the Great White Shark feeding session. I thought you might want to see more photos of that trip, so take a look at what Joe saw.)

Trip Itinerary: Stopped to watch several whales before arriving at Southeast Farallon Island ("SEFI"). Helped with a landing (this is when personnel and supplies are delivered to the island) The passengers got to see the crane lower the boat from the island to the water and shuttle food and people to the island. We dropped of 2 interns, picked up 2 more and 1 US Fish & Wildlife employee.) Sea conditions were excellent for looking for whales- with flat calm waters we had great visibility. We traveled WSW to the edge of the Continental Shelf where the ocean depth drops quickly from 200 ft to thousands of feet, to search for animals that prefer deeper waters.

Sightings:
Highlight : Pair of Black-Footed Albatrosses sitting on the calm water 10 WSW of SEFI. We were off the Continental Shelf in waters 3185 ft.

Cetaceans: 12 Humpback Whales, good views of backs and tail flukes as they sounded, with more in the distance. Observed much breaching behavior, but seen at a distance of a mile or two. Several of the whales came up close to the vessel, so passengers could hear them exhale! ~10 Harbor Porpoise near the mouth of San Francisco Bay.

Fish: 10+ blue sharks, 1 white shark, 7 ft long, 2-4 miles south of SEFI; 5 ocean sunfish (mola mola)- one was observed with a gull sitting next to it on the water, pecking at its skin. I see this behavior frequently, and anecdotally it is believed that the gulls are removing parasites from the jellyfish eaters! The individuals we observed were 2 ft long at most, but they can grow to 10 feet across!

Birds: 18 species!
2- Blackfooted Albatross; 5-7 Pomarine and Parasitic Jaegers; 200+ Sooty Shearwaters; 30 Pink-footed Shearwaters;2 Buller's Shearwater; 4 Cassin's Auklet, south of SEFI-- these birds had a complete failure in breeding in 2005 and 2006. This year they managed to breed and find enough krill to feed and fledge their chicks. Their breeding success was very low this year, but at least it is not zero like the 2 previous years!
5 Rhinoceros Auklets; Common Murre 100+ ; Brown Pelican; Double Crested Cormorants; Brandt's Cormorants; Pelagic Cormorant; 3-Elegant Terns; 20+ Red Phalaropes; 30+ Rednecked Phalaropes
Western gulls; Heermans gulls; California gulls

Pinnipeds: ~8 Northern Elephant Seals; 5-7 Northern Fur Seals; 100's California Sea Lions;5 Steller Sea Lions

Invertebrates: Moon jellies and Sea Nettle jellyfish

One final note: Thank you to passengers Cindy and Randy from Stowe, Vermont who won a free SFBay Whale Watching trip gift certificate for answering our plea for photos (seen here) of a Leatherback Sea Turtle seen on a recent trip. And, by the way, that same turtle seems to be hanging around, we've seen him/her on subsequent trips (recognizable by markings on its' head.)


Text and Photos as credited above. Posted by Kathleen Jacques.