A monster active hotspot in the Eastern channel.

Image: a close look at a surface lunge-feeding humpback whale. The pink and white, accordion-like, expanded, gular grooves are shown. The whale has engulfed a massive amount of water and anchovies, and is now expelling water, and retaining fish inside its mouth.

2026 08–01 SB Channel

Our trip down to the far E channel took place under a high, gray, stratus layer. Tiny holes of sunshine popped through late in the trip, on our way home. It was rather windy all day. On the plus side, when we were on the hotspot, the water color was a spectacularly clear, Santa Barbara cobalt. Total sightings: 2500 common dolphins, 2 humpback whales (we stayed with 1 of them for the whole trip), and 60 California sea lions.

The hotspot today was SE of platform Habitat, not too far from platform Gina. Northern anchovies were on the surface and generated multiple, large, birdnados all day.  Several thousand common dolphins were busy feeding.  Eventually 2 individual, small, whales came in to join the banquet. Almost immediately one of the whales disappeared to the E and we stayed with the second whale… the most active one.

Our talented deckhand, Isabel, identified the second whale as “HW–MN 0504148” which you can find out more about by using www.happywhale.com, the citizen scientist research tool. With all the anchovies and clear water, the little humpback probably thought it had gone to whale heaven.  It went through a series of surface lunge feeding events (see today’s photo for an example), interrupted by moving from bait ball to bait ball. It also threw its tail several times.  It made several close passes around and under the Condor Express… and whale fans on board went wild.

Captain Dave noted there was a mob of several dozen California sea lions. During the 2 hours we were watching all the action, the sea lions were laying around on the surface, relaxing and finning.  They appeared to be bloated from gluttony. Safety in numbers.

You never know what mother nature has in store.

Bob Perry

condorexpressphotos.com

Thanks again to Isabel for her whale identification work.