Huli Cat went up to to San Francisco for what has now become an occasional whale watch. Good news, as hopefully we can take folks fishing on Saturdays. The deckhand was chomping at the bit to catch a few fish, as it was slow on the coast on Friday. No sea lions on the SF weather buoy. Very little life on the way out. Interestingly, most of the humpbacks we have been seeing are off the San Mateo coast. The murre birds are all fledged off the Island. There were lots of sea gulls and many, many young. Fewer pigeon guillamot and tufted puffins than usual around the Main Island. Gary dropped a line in 80 plus feet, I drifted a while and he never had a hit. I moved and he still didn't catch a fish. When we went towards the dropoff we found a humpbck breaching and tail slapping that was very cooperative. We watched that for quite a while. As I moved towards the dropoff again, we found a tufted puffin. Later, a few albatross. Not much bait and 56 degrees 3 miles off the island. A few whales on the way towards the coast, not much life. Coming in towards the channel buoys end, we got into lots of bait about 3:30pm and huge numbers of birds working the bait. Very few charter boats working the Islands as well. And thus you have the Farallon Islands report for those that opted out of the trip to the Farallons today.
We had a huge moth fly into the cabin and wheelhouse in the early hours. It was so big, I thought it was a bat. It wound up staying in the wheelhouse for most of the trip, adjacent to the windshield.
