23 big whales

2026 05–11 SB Channel

The fog was dense, with 1 mile or less visibility, for most of the trip. It lifted late to become a low layer of stratus with good lateral visibility. There was no wind. As you can see from our course tracks above, we ran straight S and found most of the action between the lanes and beautiful Santa Cruz Island. Totals for the day: 100 common dolphins, 5 giant fin whales, and 3 humpback whales, were closely watched. 

(Captain Eddy reports at least 15 additional spouts in the area, which may have been from fin whales or humpback whales. It is safe to assume that there were at least 23 beasts in the zone).

Common dolphins were spread all over the place in small numbers, as they have been for the last week. Our initial sighting was a group of 20 about 7 miles S of the Harbor, where we stopped to watch them.

A single adult fin whale was our first large cetacean. It had a damaged and scarred dorsal surface and had completely lost its dorsal fin. Dive times were long, but it did make a very close pass off the bow of the Condor Express at one point for some amazing looks.  A couple of miles W brought us to a tight-knit group of 3 big fin whales. The trio featured long surface times for some wonderful observations.

To the W we found 3 individual humpback whales in the same general area. All were adults. One of them breached unexpectedly right off the bow! No time to rest for whale watchers! 

On the way home we had to slow down and drive around 2 more fins.

You never know what mother nature has in store.

Bob Perry

condorexpressphotos.com

NOTE: a fire on offshore oil and gas Platform Habitat has been widely reported in the news. Eddy says they could not see anything on the way out due to dense fog, but on the way home there was no more smoke. FYI