Day Twelve, March 5, Bonus day two — a trip to Islas Contreras, Montijano wind, two elusive whales, and bottlenose dolphins

​Our last full day of the expedition was spent surveying the small island group to the east of Islas Secas known as Islas Contreras. On our way there (under a head wind locally known as “Montijano”) we spotted two whales traveling together, keeping a low profile. We slowly approached them as we observed them for a surfacing interval. However, we were unable to relocate them, and because we didn’t get good looks we had to record them as “species unidentified”. Nearly simultaneously, we spotted a small group of bottlenose dolphins in the area that appeared to be of the “oceanic ecotype”. These dolphins were quite large and darker in color than the coastal group.