9/14/2024 - Cape May Pelagic: Blue Whale, Manta Rays, Brown Booby
This past Friday I drove down to Cape May for a 24 hour pelagic trip. This was my third attempt for an overnight trip this year. The previous two were cancelled due to weather and there were two other trips which I was unavailable. This one was set to sail, and we left at 9 pm. We reached our destination, Spencer Canyon, about 80 miles out, sometime after 5:30 am Saturday. The day started out rather slow with some Wilson’s storm-petrels scattered around the area. Action around the boat didn’t really start to pick up until later in the morning. The first interesting sighting was a small group of young Atlantic spotted dolphins . They were young enough to not yet bear their namesake spots, which delayed their initial identification. Until they start showing spots they might be confused with bottlenose dolphins . These dolphins had a tricolored body and white-tipped beaks to help differentiate them from the bottlen...