There’s tons of wildlife off the Dana Point coast, with pods that reach up to 5,000 dolphins that call the area home. In one pod, there’s a rare albino dolphin that sometimes makes an appearance. Check out video and blog about “Casper” here.

The coast seems to be waking up lately, with the spotting of the first blue whale of the season just a few days ago. There have also been some Risso dolphins spotted recently off Dana Point.

With the weather warming up in the afternoons, it’s a great time to head out on a charter boat. You can go through Capt. Dave’s Dolphin Safari or Dana Wharf Sportsfishing and Whalewatching.

If you can’t get enough about dolphins, check out these surfers paddling into a pod off Seal Beach.

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Post from: OC Beach Blog

Capt. Dave Anderson said he has only seen the albino dolphin once before during his years at sea, but this is the first time he’s ever been able to capture it on camera.
“We’ve never been able to get close to it until yesterday,” he said. “It got close up to the boat and was riding with us.”

In most cases, common dolphins are a sleek gray color. Anderson thinks this albino dolphin is the same one he saw before, in a group of about 500 common dolphins that swam alongside the boat.

There are about 400,000 common dolphins along the coast here, Anderson said. 

“We just never see this, it’s just a rare and unusual sighting,” he said.
His 6-year-old daughter Arielle named the dolphin “Casper.”

Among the passengers were 14 students from around the USA as well as Italy, Sweden, Great Britain, Spain,  and Scotland, who were attending a summer course on Spinal Cord Injury Research hosted by the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at the UC Irvine. 

Check out this video footage taken by passenger Sheri Lowry.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not much is known about the albino common dolphin,  but Anderson thinks the same genetics that happen with human albinos also occur in the dolphins.

A similar dolphin spotted in Louisiana last year made huge nationwide news, with photos of the pink-eyed, pink-skinned mammal circulated widely on the Internet. Read the story here.
Anderson said this one was with a calf. Also on the trip, the charter boat spotted a blue whale, two fin whales, and a pair of Risso dolphins.

More from the Beach Blog:

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Post from: OC Beach Blog

Newton had spotted a young dolphin that had beached itself.

Several ran over to help the animal and Newton swam the dolphin back out aproximately 30 feet but the animal beached itself again a few minutes later.

He swam it out a second time about 50 feet, but with no luck. Finally, surfers enlisted the help of Huntington lifeguards who located and released the young one to what was described as a frantic pod.

Thanks to Brent Hillerman for the great photo.

Post from: OC Beach Blog