Blue skies and nice ocean conditions yesterday helped make our first pelagic of the season a success. Yes, it gets tiring wearing masks/face coverings all day, but our passengers/crew did an excellent job keeping each other safe. And as most people stayed on deck, the fresh air helped too. This 8 hour trip was run in a pretty typical fashion: birding Yaquina Bay and the jetties (Black Turnstones, Surfbirds, and Wandering Tattlers), finding Marbled Murrelets and other species nearshore, out to a chum stop 32 miles offshore, and back. We did see most expected species, albeit in low numbers for most species, including Black-footed Albatross, Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel, Sooty, Pink-footed and Buller's Shearwaters, Cassin's and Rhinoceros Auklets, both phalaropes, Sabine's Gulls,and one each Long-tailed and Pomarine Jaegers. We missed Arctic Tern, but compensated with Commons. Other pelagic fauna providing us a thrill were 7 humpback whales (some breaching and tail slapping), various pinnipeds, and a very cooperative blue shark at the chum stop. At the end of the day, we had a lot of satisfied passengers and tired, smiling faces. Our next two trips (8/29 12-hour and 9/12 8-hour) are full with waiting lists, but the rest of or scheduled trips (9/26, 10/4, 10/24, and 12/5) have plenty of room. If you would like to join us on the ocean in 2020, please visit the Schedule & Prices page on this website for that information (and to see how many open spots each trip has remaining), and the COVID-19 PROTOCOLS page to learn what we are doing to prevent COVID transmission.
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