I
‘slept in’ until 6 a.m. and, after Anders waked up, checked the Log. We were at 36° 20.55 N 122° 41.74 W, the wind
was south (188°) at 21 knots, and the ship was 314 miles out of L.A., off
Monterey & traveling at 27 knots. We
breakfasted at the Horizon Room buffet and went down to bird, but found that
the crew was cleaning the decks, so couldn’t access the Promenade until 7:30
a.m.
 |
| On Deck At Last |
When
we got out to the open bow, which is on Deck 8, we were joined by two other
birders. James Cherry, from Redlands,
was aboard with his wife and 17-year-old son, but came out on deck off-and-on
throughout the day. He was with us, and
spotted our first Laysan Albatross of the day.
Dick Nelson also joined us at the bow with his spotting scope, and spent
most of the day while we were in California waters, and we were joined several
times by Dick’s wife Delores.
 |
| Anders and Dick scoping the seas . . . |
Through
the day, we saw several humpback whales, including a pod of four close to the
starboard side, and one standing on its head & slapping its tail close off
the port bow.
 |
| You can never see enough whales . . . |
Early
on, Anders spied a high-arcing bird and got me on it, which turned out to be a
Murphy’s Petrel, our only petrel of the trip.
Birds, and other whale sightings, were fairly sparse through the
day.
 |
| A Laysan Albatross livened up the morning |
We were (I was) having trouble
identifying the small gulls at distance.
Heck, I was having some issues identifying some of the birds near the
ship… So, we were uncertain whether we
were seeing Kittiwakes-Bonaparte’s Gulls-Sabine’s Gulls out there, and there
were considerable discussions about whether the white patch on the wing was on
the leading edge or trailing edge, whether the black in the wingtips was
squared-off or not, etc. It was kind of
frustrating to not have resolution on the IDs.
Dick was a wealth of information, due to his expertise. The few large tube-noses we saw were both
Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses. The
fewer shearwaters seen were Sooty (or Sooty/Short-tailed) and a Pink-footed or
two.
 |
| Black-footed Albatross |
It
is interesting and amusing how the other passengers will be taking the
promenade, and presume that we birders are photographing whales. Why else would we be out there? At least, those ‘cruisers’ are aware that
there are whales in the Ocean . . . some of the folks jogging the deck don’t
even look out over the sea!
 |
| Dolphins come by to check out the ship pretty regularly |
At
noon, the ship was making 21 knots in 750 fathoms of water, 32 nm off Point
Reyes at 38º 09’ N and 123º 40’ W. The
skies were sunny with and passing showers, 55º F and a strong southwest breeze
at 25 knots. We birded until the sun
set. Today’s trip took us from west of Monterey
Bay at daybreak to not too far off of Ferndale by the time darkness fell.
 |
| Anders was pretty hard-core, birding until the end of the day |
This
evening, we supped in the Michelangelo Dining Room. I had the “Surf and Turf”, carefully
avoiding the larger portion that had a $29 surcharge.
We kept eBird Checklists every 30 minutes, and I'll post a few links:
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