October 26 Weather Forced Cancellation

The Newport pelagic trip aboard Misty scheduled for Saturday, October 26 was canceled due to bad weather. The forecast for poor conditions remained unchanged from the five-day forecast on. High winds and high waves doth not a safe and fun pelagic make.

October 12 Pelagic Results

The October 12 pelagic out of Garibaldi bucked the weather forecast of strong winds and high swells offshore and enjoyed a very successful day on the ocean. After our trip preparation talk, we boarded the Alaska Sunrise a little after 7:00 am. Our boat crew was headed by Mick, who after a long career, would be making his last charter trip with us today. Our deckhand was his daughter, Tamara, one of the owners of Garibaldi Charters, and who was making her first trip with Oregon Pelagic Tours. Our trip out the bay provided the usual suspects: grebes, gulls and cormorants, although a group of Sanderlings on the Barview Jetty was not typical. On the ocean, we did have some large swells, but overall the trip was not too bad for most passengers. We made it to 23 miles offshore, did two chum stops, the first being very productive, with both Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses (one of the latter) coming in. Two albatross days, while not guaranteed, are no longer a surprise on our trips. We had very low numbers of jaegers and no skua, just a few Sabine's Gulls, but otherwise did see most of the expected species, including four species of shearwaters (Sooty, Pink-footed, Buller's and Short-tailed). The avian highlight was coming across 2 pairs of Scripps's Murrelets, the last pair giving everyone a decent view. Marine mammal numbers were low, but we did have a possible fin whale early on, several humpback whales (one breach!)  and a large, distant pod of Dall's porpoises. It was a nice day to be on the ocean, and an honor to be part of Captain Mick's last day as a charter skipper.

Looking forward to this Saturday's Garibaldi trip!

While it was very disappointing not to get enough sign-up to run our 8-hour Newport pelagic on October 6, we are very excited to have a full boat for the 8-hour Garibaldi pelagic on October 12. With the weather forecasted to be good, we are anticipating a great trip! We will post the results after the trip on eBird, and mention highlights here and on the Oregon Pelagic Tours Facebook page.