Pelagic Trip Report:
Saturday, September 8, 2001
Newport, Oregon, out 22 miles
8-hours

Yaquina Bay, S 3 miles staying about 1 mile offshore, SW 12 miles to chum, then N 8 miles, then W to 22 miles off Newport to chum, then return.

A windy day offshore made us change our original plans. We were ready to cancel and return to port, and then seas calmed a bit in late morning. This allowed us to sneak offshore 22 miles from Newport before winds picked back up again after lunch. Strong north winds brought sunny skies and high temperatures to the beaches, but blew a lot of wave splash over us on the trip back to port.

For most of the day we traveled slowly and chummed quite a while in order to find low numbers of most of the expected species offshore.

Highlights: 8 POMARINE JAEGERS at once during our first chum stop, including 3 dark phase. One jet black adult with long spoons and brilliantly flashing white primary patches was especially striking. A pod of DALL'S PORPOISES body-surfed on the waves about our boat during the second chum stop. They must have played around the boat for 15 minutes. We had a rather quick view of a SOUTH POLAR SKUA on the return trip. It disappeared behind a large swell and never was seen again. Only about half the passengers were able to see it.

Species list from the entire trip including Yaquina Bay.

Red-throated Loon 3
Common Loon 2
Black-footed Albatross 2
Northern Fulmar 1
Pink-footed Shearwater 49
Buller's Shearwater 24
Sooty Shearwater 80
Brown Pelican 4
Double-crested Cormorant 15
Brandt's Cormorant 32
Pelagic Cormorant 100
Northern Pintail 70
White-winged Scoter 12
Black Turnstone 2
Surfbird 4
Red-necked Phalarope 36
Pomarine Jaeger 14
Parasitic Jaeger 5
jaeger sp. 2
South Polar Skua 1
California Gull 55
Western Gull 70
Sabine's Gull 8
Arctic Tern 9
Common Murre 103
Pigeon Guillemot 5
Rhinoceros Auklet 5
Belted Kingfisher 1

Ocean Sunfish 1
Gray Whale 2
Harbor Porpoise 4
Dall's Porpoise 5
Harbor Seal 8
California Sea Lion 25