Pacific Offshore Expeditions

Have you ever seen a humpback "kelping"? Last week's Expedition finished with a real treat, watching this whale play with a kelp paddy for about 30 minutes. Our usual 0800 departure gave us really nice conditions for traveling into the offshore waters. We moved across the Huntington Flats to get past the oil platforms into the deeper water. As soon as we did, huge flocks of shearwaters and a large pod of Common Dolphin greeted us. It looked really good for whales. But first ...we enjoyed this awesome spectacle of several hundred commons in glassy water. Alas, even when two pods joined into a mega pod, it was still without spouts. We only had to continue for a little while longer before another huge pod of dolphin was seen. This time though, a spout! Right in the middle was a feeding Humpback Whale. We recognized it from our trip the day before, in which we saw 9 humpbacks. Soon a Fin Whale joined in on the action too. After nearly an hour here we decided to keep going to see what else could be in store for us in the San Pedro Channel. Up the line closer to Two Harbors we found "Top Gun", the killer whale attack survior with only a few commons. This whale has been documented in Eastern Russia so it was great to tell all our passengers about its story. After some more searching which yielded little result, it was time to take our lunch break in Two Harbors. After lunch we saw a pair of Bald Ealges and a Harbor Seal to the east of the Isthmus with produced some good photos. Capt. Ryan figured it would be best if we returned to the zone of activity we had in the morning. As we headed that direction we didn't quite get there before encountering a megapod of dolphins again as well as 3 Humpbacks. We spent some quality time with one of our favorites "Snowflake" before noticing another whale acting funny about 3/4 mile away. It was spyhopping and twirling around. When we arrived we realized it was playing with kelp. For about 30 minutes we got to watch this whale having a blast in a pile of seaweed. Then, when it was done, the friendly whale decided to play with our boat! It was awesome to be only 4 miles off Catalina Island playing hide and seek with a humpback. This whale had a very stealthy way of popping up right along side the boat with little warning. In the glassy water it was an experience to remember. The setting sun then called us home to Newport Harbor; another great Expedition in the books! Our next all day trip is tomorrow Nov 29th. With scheduled trips on the calendar each Friday through December 18th. We may be putting additional December dates online as demand allows: hopefully for weekends, too!

NINE Humpback Whales, over 3,000 Common Dolphin, a dozen Pacific Whitesided dolphins, and a single Fin Whale! Those were the sighting totals from today's Offshore Expedition aboard our Zodiac the "Tern". And the action began not more than a mile after leaving Newport Harbor. Now typically, we are in a rush to move beyond the nearshore waters to get out offshore. But we couldn't resist stopping to play with what started off as just 3 Pacific White Sided Dolphins. These animals... were incredibly active and playing with each other and the boat. The sunny skies and glassy water's surface made watching them totally mesmorizing. A full 45 minutes spent with these beauties was for some passengers actually the highlight of the trip. After this encounter we pressed westward, encountering fog for about 30 miles. Nevertheless we persevered until we found an opening in the Santa Monica Bay. Here there were thousands and thousands of common dolphins. After some playtime with these critters we kept moving up and out into the bay. Finally, we saw spouts. A humpback whale we recognized as "Twitch" was paired up with another humpback. Then two more humpbacks appeared on the horizon, and we knew one of them as "blackie". Another whale rounded out a total of 5 humpbacks sighted about 15 miles north of Catalina. The animals were amongst common dolphin but the lack of bird life in the area told us they were not feeding, but rather on the hunt. It was by now time to head to Catalina Island for a mid-day break. The fog had all lifted and we got there quickly. With only a few hours of daylight left, the stop was a quick one as we set out to find more whales closer to the island. And we sure did. Another 4 humpback whales as well as a fin whale just about 6 miles toward Palos Verdes. We recognized one as a favorite, known as "Snowflake". These humpbacks had found the food and were accompanied by hundreds of common dolphins and thousands of shearwaters. Some close encounters were had. It was awesome to wrap our expedition adding 5 more whales to our total count of 10 for the day. We'll be back out there, tomorrow. Today's photos provided by the talents of Delaney Trowbridge Photography

Such a special encounter with a dozen Killer Whales yesterday! Our crew set out to make the trek to San Nicolas Island, the most remote and least visited of the eight Channel Islands. It is 90 miles from Newport Beach and 60 miles from the nearest land. Just before we arrived at the Island, about 6 miles off, the unmistakeable dorsal fin of an adult male Orca came into view. Eventually several sub-groups of more killer whales became visible. For the next four hours we followe...d the pod northwest, and watched them chase sea lions and dolphins, and actually kill one sea lion (but they decided not to eat it). Encountering orcas in southern California is not common, but they are probably here more than we realize. Remote areas of ocean among the Channel Islands have plenty of sources of prey for these hunters, but they remain elusive and hard to track. Even after being with this pod for hours, all it took was one long dive and all 12 of these orcas disappeared. Despite back tracking and scanning all over, we lost them. Where they are now is competely unknown, but they are probably not in the same spot. The California Killer Whale Project/Alisa Schulman-Janiger has partially identified this group as the "CA27s", a pod that is seen relatively infrequently.

A double mugging! Yesterday's Expedition enjoyed some exhilarating quality time from two curious Humpback Whales. For at least 20 minutes we had these two whales spyhopping, flipper flapping, head standing, and fluke waving all around the boat. It was amazing. The Veteran's Day holiday provided us an opportunity to offer an expedition in the middle of the week, which was well attended by 12 passengers aboard our largest Zodiac, the 36 foot "Shearwater." Wednesday happened to ...also be the nicest weather day of the week, so besides a little southeast morning breeze, it turned out to be a gorgeous and still day on the water. Our first action began about 90 minutes into our trip, on the frontside of Catalina Island. A large pod of dolphins caught our attention first from a distance, and then we began to see spouts. A pair of humpback whales! One of these animals was identified as "Flicka" a well known whale for us this season seen by us at this point dozens of times. Flicka and his compainion started to engage in some playful behavior amongst themselves, and eventually our boat. We even got a close surprise breach from Flicka right in our wake at one point. After the fantastic close encounter the whales moved on and so did we, taking a lunch stop in Avalon. We enjoyed a few miles of Catalina coastline after lunch where we spotted and photographed a pair of Bald Eagles 3 miles west of Avalon. Then we headed back offshore. After a bit of searching Capt. Ryan found another superpod of Common Dolphins. Just like last time, we eventually discovered two humpbacks among them. Except it was two completely different whales! One of which we recognized as "Chalkboard". By this time the wind had died completely and it was warm and glassy conditions. A great end to our super successful All Day Expedition: 4 Humpback Whales and thousands of Common Dolphins.

This whale is a SURVIVOR! Sighted on our All Day Expedition on Friday, this Humpback Whale has suffered severe attack from Killer Whales on its flukes sometime in its short life. Killer Whales often attack humpbacks when they are calves, and this animal was on the smaller side, probably less than 5 years old. However, the whole time we spent with this whale it was feeding and swimming along just fine. It even had a whale buddy it was paired up with named "Frankie", a humpback...Continue reading

We're so excited for Fall! Beautiful footage featuring three Humpback Whales was filmed on last Friday's Offshore Expedition by Mark Girardeau We're going again this Friday October 16th, with a couple of open spots remaining. Link here: https://newportcoastaladventure.rezdy.com//pacific-offshor We left Newport Harbor at 9am aboard our largest Zodiac, 36' in length, named the Shearwater with 10 people on board. At first we encountered about 10mph of wind and residual swell. ...After about 20 miles of traveling up the coast toward San Pedro, this conditon relaxed and we enjoyed a much calmer ocean. Not long after, Capt. Ryan saw through his binoculars the spouts of three humpback whales! The whales were all swimming tightly together following a feeding pod of long-beaked common dolphins. Thousands of shearwaters buzzed around picking anchovies. Within our first few minutes with these whales Mark and Ryan thought they recognized an old friend. It turned out to be the humpback known as "snowflake" who we saw as a calf with her mom "Chris" in 2017. In the years since we usually see this whale at one time or another. It has a beautiful white fluke. This pod of 3 whales was engaged in very social behavior both amongst one another and with our boat. A very close encounter involved "snowflake" making a slow breach right next to the boat, about 50 feet away. Although it was surprise, many passengers got photos or video of this awesome display. The whales followed around the dolphins for an hour and then assembled again in a tight trio heading off toward Catalina Island, which is when Mark filmed the drone video. After another 30 minutes with the whales, we too decided to head towards Two Harbors for an hour long lunch break and rest stop. After lunch we headed toward the West End of Catalina where near Arrow Point we encounterd a pod of offshore bottlenose dolphins. These were the closest and shallowest Capt. Ryan has ever seen offshore bottlenose at Catalina. Just about a 1/4 mile from shore in 200 feet of water. Moving on we made it to the backside of the west end briefly where it turned a little windy. We finished our trip by tracking down one of the humpback whales again from this morning, but the other two including snowflake were not to be found. Moving back toward home we came across another great pod of long beaked common dolphins. Our return at 6pm was technically 1 hour "late" but no complaints were made with the bonus ocean time.

Today’s offshore expedition began our day with a pair of dancing Fin Whales! We saw these greyhounds of the sea racing around chasing one another and even twirling at the surface. Fantastic drone video captured by Delaney Trowbridge Photography After this encounter which occurred off San Clemente, we ventured in the direction of Catalina Island. We didn’t make it more than 10 miles before in the distance Capt. Ryan spotted the back of a whale among a large pod of common dol...phins. This whale turned out to be a Humpback we recognized as Flicka from earlier this year. 15 minutes later we noticed a second humpback in the area too, which breached once right next to our other Zodiac the Shearwater. After at least an hour with these humpbacks we set off again for Catalina Island. Some fog in the channel crossing made for a dramatic arrival at Catalina as the wispy fog interacted with the cliffs of the frontside. We saw a bald eagle and and osprey as we toured the Island shallows on our way to Two Harbors. There we enjoyed a 45 minute lunch break. Heading out again, a hot tip from our friends Kevin and Erik saw us watching two more Humpback Whales in the waters near San Pedro. Both of these whales we recognized from encounters in months past, including the famous Twitch!. They eventually joined up with a large pod of feeding common dolphin. It was by then time to head back to Newport, having been out on the water for a very enjoyable and successful 8 hours with our seven passengers.

Look who's back in Southern California! Pacific White-Sided Dolphin photographed by Capt. Ryan today behind Catalina Island.

Today’s Offshore Expedition featured this Bryde’s Whale with an entourage of yellowfin tuna! We watched these two species feed together on schools of fish.

This Friday we're offering the chance to spend All Day on an Expedition involving Catalina Island and the offshore waters. Leaving from Newport Beach, we will be on our Zodiac for 8+ hours, which includes a visit to shore on Catalina. Reservations available here, limited to 8 passengers maximum: https://newportcoastaladventure.rezdy.com//pacific-offshor

Last Friday's Offshore Expedition was treated to a tight "train" of three blue whales. It's a cool reminder that these giants can take breaks from consuming massive amounts of krill to socialize and even chase around each other! In total we saw 5 Blue Whales, 1 Humpback Whale, 1 Minke Whale, 40 Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins, and 250 Common Dolphins. As we transition towards Fall in the next month, more Expeditions will be put on the calendar to take advantage of our favorite time to year to be Offshore in southern California!

"WOW!!" Everyone aboard our Private Expedition yesterday was amazed to see this all white Risso's Dolphin pop up amidst its darker and mottled pattern companions. Capt. Ryan grabbed video of this rare outlier.

This Tuesday our private charter Expedition had the incredible experience of being surrounded by three feeding Blue Whales, over 60 miles from Newport Beach. Encounters like this become more likely when we are able to take extended time to search the outer waters for nature's most amazing events.

Capt. Ryan filmed the largest animal in the world feeding today about 20 miles from Newport Beach. Could our Blue summer finally be here? We hope so!

A reminder that there are some beautiful sights to be seen just past your doorstep! Here's our Zodiac at the East End of Catalina earlier this week, droned by Mark Girardeau

Our Memorial Day Six Hour Private Expedition to Catalina Island came across a pod of Risso's Dolphins, just off the shore from Avalon Harbor. The frontside of Catalina is one of the most plesant places in California, offering sheltered calm waters and incredible beauty! (Filmed by Capt. Ryan)

From our 4 hour private Expedition today, close to 1,000 Common Dolphin, stampeding up the coast. We were able to make it was far south as Carlsbad when we came across this incredible spectacle!

This weekened we were thrilled to have hosted several Offshore Expeditions. This footage is from Saturday off Catalina Island, where a pod of at least 500 Common Dolphin and Two Humpback Whales passed between our 6 hour and 8 hour private charters. We are offering a special right now on Expeditions up to 6 people: $295 for 3 hours, and just $100 per hour after that. For example, a private six hour tour on the ocean is just $595. Send us a message with any questions!