15 Whales, 5000 dolphins, and plenty of great action
- Bob Perry
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Image: an enthusiastic humpback whale slaps its mighty tail against the water today, perhaps in response to the California sea lion in the lower right corner?
2026 07–04 SB Channel
The skies had a deep marine layer with the exception of occasional “sucker holes” of sunlight peeking through. Seas were glassy at the beginning of the trip, it got breezy for a mile or 2, then became glassy again. Water clarity improved a lot today. Total sightings: 5000 common dolphins, 15 humpback whales (we closely watched 10), and 200 California sea lions. Captain Eddy and the crew ran S and, like yesterday, we ended up S of the lanes near the West End of beautiful Santa Cruz Island.
There wasn’t much to see during the first hour, but at 11:10 AM we got into our first pod of about 200 dolphins. Fun to see them in the Clearwater riding our wake waves. We continued S.
11:25 AM. We watched our first whale (CRC-17840) for a while. It appeared to be “travel mode,” but it abruptly did a magnificent surface lunge, straight up out of the water. No one had time to get their cameras ready, especially me!
11:35 AM. A pair of additional], single humpback whales, 100 more dolphins, and a bunch of California sea lions were observed. 1 of the 2 dolphins breached in the distance, and as we approached, it engaged in a bit of pec fin slapping (see today’s image above). It approached the boat and made a close enough pass for some decent whale selfies.
12:10 PM. Right off the bow another whale got close and made sure there was no sleeping going on by its fans. We had white pectoral fins. Nearby we observed a nice raft of resting California sea lions with their own pectoral fins in the air. In the distance, there was a short but lively stampede of dolphins which was great to see.
12:15 PM. Another whale crossed our bow closely. They were at least four additional whales in the distance, and one of them did a surface lunge. A group of California sea lions came porpoising by at high speed.
12:45 PM. We watched a sideways surface lunge near the whale watching vessel “Velella,” just off of our starboard side.
1 PM. Lots of activity going on… Many small birdnados all around… dominated by brown pelicans.
On our way home we slowed down for a minute to get a quick look at the last humpback whale of the day.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
