Day 5 - Thursday 1st April
Pacific Coast – Magdalena Bay
At daybreak the Spirit was traveling southward off Punta Lazaro. Just after breakfast, three Humpback Whales were spotted, a mother-calf pair with an escort.
At 8:00 am, Captain Brian found two more Humpbacks, which were tail-lobbing, flipper-flapping and breaching! They put on a great show, breaching at least a dozen times. We also saw a pair of Sabine’s Gulls, hovering and dipping in the water where the whale had just breached. Perhaps they were eating sluffing skin from the whales or lice knocked free by the impact of falling back to the water.
Continuing down swell we found a group of about 50 Long-beaked Common Dolphins. Everyone enjoyed wonderful views of these swift animals as they joined us for a while speeding down swell. Just after lunch, we found a Green Sea Turtle.
By late afternoon we were in moderately deep water about twenty miles off the islands that form Magdalena Bay. Although we didn’t find any whales here, we observed 12 Royal Terns, 8 Black Storm Petrels, 3 Black-vented Shearwaters and 5 Sabine’s Gulls. At 4:30 pm a group of 180-200 Long-beaked Common Dolphins was seen surfing and swimming through the waves. We ended the day with a mother-calf pair of Humpbacks.
