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VIDEO: Patches, the famed West Coast dolphin, reappears for a record 4 days off Orange County
For four days in a row, the famous West Coast dolphin known as Patches has been seen off the Orange County coast.
The dolphin, spotted with white and pink patches, is a fan favorite for ocean enthusiasts and boat charter passengers.
“It’s always so exciting to see him,” said Nona Reimer, a naturalist with Dana Wharf Sportfishing and Whale Watching, recounting Patches’ appearances starting Monday, Aug. 3. “He’s just such a unique dolphin. He was swimming right next to another bottlenose dolphin. It was beautiful to see them swim side-by-side.”
So far, he’s been spotted in a group of about 50 other bottlenose dolphins just outside Dana Point Harbor, off San Clemente and South Laguna. Now, Donna Kalez, who operates the Dana Point charter, wonders where he’ll pop up next and if the sighting marathon will continue.
“We’ve never seen him this many days in a row,” she said Thursday, Aug. 6, after Reimer reported another afternoon sighting just outside Dana Point Harbor. “It’s like the Dana Point mascot. We’ll see him one day and then he’ll be in Oceanside and then up in L.A., and then we don’t see him again for months.”
What makes the dolphin so unique is his coloring, which is entirely different than the rest of the dark gray group. His unusual appearance comes from Leucism, a condition in which a reduction in melanin causes a partial loss of pigmentation in an animal resulting in white, pale or patchy coloration of the skin.
On Monday, Patches was seen just outside the Dana Point Harbor; Tuesday he was off South Laguna; and Wednesday, he and his pod were surfing through waves off Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point.
On Thursday, a minke whale surfaced close to Patches making the sighting even more spectacular. A group of research students from the University of Redlands were aboard the Ocean Adventures. Their project focused on studying the impact of human presence on marine mammals.
Two weeks before ago, he was seen by boat captains off the Channel Islands.
“He’s a healthy, strong male,” said Reimer, a retired Capistrano Unified School District teacher. “Seeing Patches never gets old.”
Charter boat crews have seen him as far south as San Diego. He was first seen off Southern California in 2006 by naturalist Mark Tyson.