Capt. Dave's Ocean Report

As seen weekly in the Dana Point News/Orange County Register

July 21, 2005

Well I think the red tide may be over. At least I am certainly seeing it much less. Last Thursday birds from all over were gathered in the harbor for a fishy feast courtesy of the red tide. We could see fish gulping for air all over the harbor and the harbor water was rust colored and smelled. Why? Well, as the dinoflagellates that cause the red tide die the bacteria that eat these one-celled wonders rob the water of oxygen. This is what brings the fish to the surface like when someone doesn’t clean the aquarium. But anyway, the harbor looks and smells great now and I believe the red tide is about over – we shall see.

We are still seeing lots of common dolphin out there, and lots and lots of calves too. We usually see the calving peak earlier in the summer, but I don’t believe we have even reached the zenith of our common dolphin births yet this summer - but we are close.

We also saw rissos dolphins this week – we haven’t seen rissos too much lately so that was really nice.

A little story: just as we were leaving the harbor recently Dean from the Marine Mammal Center called me on the radio and asked if we would like to witness the release of a rescued elephant seal. My passengers all seemed excited about it, so we headed over to watch a young elephant seal named Boogie get released.
Everyone was delighted at the news that he would soon be free - everyone except Boogie. See Photo. Boogie wouldn’t even leave his cage, even when it was lifted up to over a 45-degree angle. I guess that says something about the hospitality of the Marine Mammal center. But by lifting the cage a little higher and some arms reaching in he finally slid into the sea, popping his head out of the water a little later. Another older elephant seal was released a few minutes after Boogie with a whole different attitude. That seal took off as soon as they opened the cage, so fast I couldn’t even get a photo of him. No reflection on the great care he received getting nursed back to good health by Dean and company I am sure.

Cory on the Dana pride called me on my cell phone Tuesday evening to let me know they had spotted a blue whale only three miles out of the harbor on Dana Wharf ‘s 5 pm whale watch. We will be looking for that blue on our morning trip tomorrow. Hopefully he will still be around feeding tomorrow. The blue whales are still around making spotty, cameo appearances. So far we have not had any of the big numbers of blues in our area like we had last year and the year before.

See photo Angela Cowan from the Ocean Institute took of a blue whale heading for our catamaran sailboat dolphinsafari.com.

Well, that’s all there is, there ain’t no more - till next week. May God bless you. Capt. Dave, over and out.

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