Activity Report

Domenic Biagini
Domenic Biagini
@dolphindronedom
Followers: 1,510,210Posts: 1,111Following: 2,518
San Diego, California Founder of @gonewhalewatching 🐋 ⬇️ Book Whale Watching in San Diego! ⬇️
View all posts from @dolphindronedom
See Blue Whales, Killer Whales, Humpback Whales, and so much more like never before with the release of my new 50 minute YouTube film! With tons of never-before-seen footage, this film will tell the story of my very best wildlife encounters from hundreds of days on the ocean off San Diego, with footage from the entire Gone Whale Watching team!

To celebrate the release, I’ll be giving a way a ton of prizes! Prizes will include merch, discounts to @gonewhalewatching, and even free whale watching! The grand prize will be two tickets to an Extended Blue Whale tour with @gonewhalewatching! All you need to do to enter is watch the film on YouTube when it releases tomorrow, and then leave a comment discussing which segment was your favorite and why before the contest deadline ends at 11:59pm January 12th!

I will then use a random number calculator on Instagram live to select 20 commentators that will all win prizes. Your number will be determined by the order you commented in. Only comments that state their favorite sequence and why during the contest period will qualify. Full prize list will be announced on my YouTube channel when the film releases tomorrow. 

Make sure you’re subscribed, as I’ll be making YouTube a priority in 2025! These animals deserve more than 15 second vertical clips!

Thank you all for following along over the years, let’s make 2025 a special one!
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While running tours with @gonewhalewatching is one of the greatest joys of my life, it’s always nice to get out on the water with @erica.sackrison just to have fun without the pressure of finding wildlife! Naturally, whenever you don’t NEED to find whales, the whales tend to find you! 3 different Humpback Whales gave Erica and I an afternoon we’ll never forget! They gently interacted with us like this for hours, and it was really fun to see us tiny humans next to these enormous creatures on the drone screen! 

The last 3 years, late November was by far our best Humpback Whale encounters with @gonewhalewatching. If you’re looking for something fun to do over Thanksgiving, we’d love to host you! You never know when magic will strike next!

#GoneWhaleWatching
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A living submarine: the Blue Whale!

Yet another extended stretch of unusually bad weather and rough sea conditions has arrived in San Diego, which means I’ll be sitting in front of the computer doing a ton of editing work! Still, it’s hard to complain when San Diego has been so good to me over the years, especially during the summer! @gonewhalewatching has had some of the most consistent and reliable year-to year Blue Whale sightings during June-August, with June having been far and away the best month to view this iconic creature on one of our standard 2.5 hour tours. However, sometimes we have to travel a little further to find the Blues (as much as 60-80 miles during the mid-late summer in 2020), and for that reason we run special Extended Blue Whale tours that have no time constraints! With most of our first set of dates sold out, we added a bunch of new dates for June-August! We’ve only NOT seen Blue Whales on one of our summer extended tours just ONCE in the last three years!* If you want the best chance to spend some time with the biggest animal to ever roam the earth, book your Extended Blue Whale tour now! Dates sell-out weeks and even months in advance, so don’t delay! Here’s the difference in the 3 months:

JUNE:
-Usually the most whales 
-Chances for non-blue whale species 
-Usually don’t have to travel too far offshore 
-Weather is generally grey, chilly, and overcast throughout the day
JULY:
-Plenty of whales, but usually longer trips as they tend to be further offshore
-Chances for non-blue whale species
-Weather usually starts overcast, but the sun often breaks through in the afternoons
AUGUST:
-Number of blue whales fluctuates, but they generally are still reliable to find.
-Increased chances for exotic and non-blue whale species 
-Travel distance varies wildly year to year
-By far the best weather and sea conditions of the summer

To book visit our website at www.gonewhalewatching.com

*on trips not shortened by weather
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No matter how big or small, every life matters! 💙

This is the story of a little warbler that was lost out at sea and rescued by our @gonewhalewatching team a couple of years ago. We encounter situations like this fairly often when we’re offshore, and we try to help every little bird that we can!
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Humpback whales breaching with beautiful backdrops is a daily occurrence on the island of Maui during the winter! 

Every year I host a special 5-day whale watching experience on the island of Maui, and we still have a few spots available for our 2026 dates at the end of January! If you’re interested in receiving more information to potentially join us, please send an email to info@gonewhalewatching.com

This shot was filmed this past season with our host company @maui_ocean_adventures, and they will be our partner company again in 2026!
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It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…Short-Beaked Common Dolphins!!!

Short beaked common dolphins can often be spotted from miles away thanks to their penchant for launching themselves into the sky! This one in particular launched itself right through my lens at San Clemente Island yesterday! 

Viewed aboard @gonewhalewatching
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Bonkers compilation of some of the most spectacular ETP orca predation events we’ve witnessed with @gonewhalewatching in recent years for World Orca Day! For me personally these are some of my favorite ocean memories because these were rare moments I got to witness the action with my naked eyes: not through a camera lens or drone screen! We are very lucky @erica.sackrison is so good with a camera!

P.s. Orca and “killer whale” are used interchangeably and fully embraced in the scientific community. It’s 2025, I promise you calling them killer whales is okay! These dolphins would certainly agree!
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There will never be a moment when I take blue whale sightings for granted…

If you went solely by the remarkable success we’ve had encountering blue whales with @gonewhalewatching in San Diego the last 5-6 summers, you’d think I might be relatively used to encountering blue whales. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The blue whale is the reason I fell in love with whale watching, and I cherish each and every sighting. 

In the summer of 2017 I was working my first ever job on a whale watching boat in Orange County. Going into that summer I knew that blue whale sightings hadn’t been great in that area the past couple of years, and I probably encountered blues less than a dozen times that summer. I remember seeing posts from San Diego documenting blue whale sightings a couple of times per week that summer(which ironically is where i lived) and being sooo jealous. 

From 2018 onwards I worked in San Diego, and each year I was amazed at the remarkable consistency of blue whale encounters during the summer, especially for faster boats like the ones we use with @gonewhalewatching that were capable of covering more ground. I’d be lying to you however, if I didn’t admit feeling anxiety each summer hoping to never experience such a slow summer for sightings like I did in Orange County in 2017.

Welp, 2025 has been the first time I’ve really experienced a “slow” blue whale summer in San Diego. I put slow in quotations because the word is truly relative. Since May, we’ve encountered blue whales on our tours 19 different days this summer. Down substantially from the last 3 years when sightings were almost daily May through early August. When compared to the rest of California however, San Diego has been far and away the best place to have a chance to see blue whales this summer up to this point, as no other whale watching destination in the state has cracked double digit days of sightings, and most are in the low single-digits. 

Continued in comments:
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Mrs. Blue Whale you have my dog Fin’s attention!

What a day this was from last July. Every blue whale summer is different off San Diego, and while June is usually the most reliable month to see them, the season often has various peaks and valleys throughout the summer. During this stretch in mid-July, we found an area 60 miles from Mission Bay where over a 100 blue whales all feeding within 4-5 miles of each other! When the weather would allow us to reach this spot, it was nothing short of magical.

On this especially calm day, Fin came along for the ride to spend time with his favorite animals. We drifted with our motors off to take in the amazing sights and sounds of the largest animal to ever live. While this large(and skinny) female blue whale is the animal you see in the video, if you listen closely you can hear the spouts of the numerous other whales that happened to be surfacing nearby! This particular whale had a calf with her. Mother blue whales tend to be pretty skinny when we see them, as they have to provide not only for themselves, but for their offspring as well. Luckily there was a lot of krill in this area, so hopefully she was able to fatten herself back up!
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A World of Whales! That’s the title to my latest long-form project: an hour and fifteen cinematic experience of pure ocean ambience featuring blue, fin, humpback, minke, and gray whales alongside orcas and common dolphins. This compilation blends soothing ambient music, natural ocean sounds, and features numerous uninterrupted one-shots that invite you to feel like you’re truly out at sea! Whether you’re meditating, studying, doing laundry, or winding down for the night, let the gentle rhythm of the Pacific and the presence of these amazing animals calm your mind.

This is certainly a new type of project for me, so please head over to my YouTube to check it out and leave a comment letting me know what you think!
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5,000 dolphins all taking off at top speed in a stampede! In my opinion this is one of the greatest spectacles in nature!

Viewed aboard @gonewhalewatching
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“I’m against gay sex because it isn’t part of nature.” “It’s not natural”…

I guess these 60,000 pound gray whales are out here rubbing their slinky sea snakes all over each other for the camera just to make a buck selling it on OnlyFins™️…Certainly couldn’t be a totally normal thing that’s part of nature right!?

Jokes aside, homosexual behavior is a well-documented and natural part of the animal kingdom. Scientists have observed same-sex pairings, courtship, mating, and long-term bonds in over 1,500 species, including whales, dolphins, penguins, bonobos, giraffes, and lions. These behaviors aren’t just random, rather they often serve social, emotional, and even survival-related purposes within species.

In the case of these Gray Whales, same-sex interactions are particularly common. Male gray whales have been seen engaging in mutual sexual behaviors that appear to strengthen social bonds or perhaps establish dominance. They also seem to just be doing it…for fun. In other words: homosexuality isn’t just natural, it’s a very real part of daily life in the ocean.

Happy Pride Month! 🐋🌈
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