After a night of calm wind buffered by San Francisco Island, we headed out to sea first thing in search of marine mammals. Just east of San Jose Island, not too far from Las Animas, there is a drop-off on the ocean floor. Geographical features such as this tend to make for promising spotting territory, for toothed whales in particular.
It wasn’t long before we encountered a massive pod of long-beaked common dolphins. We spent a good part of the morning enjoying these magnificent creatures as they engulfed National Geographic Venture from all sides. (Talk about being in it.)
Had we been on a larger vessel, it is not clear the dolphins could have come so close, and the privilege of an experience as intimate and surreal as this one would have been lost entirely.
