A very light breeze wafted across the Channel today, but with no waves the trip was very calm and nice. The sun came in and out from behind the thin high clouds. Just outside the Harbor a few of us spotted a small pod of perhaps 10 Pacific white-sided dolphins heading through the west beach anchorage. Further offshore we had about 200 long-beaked common dolphins scattered all over the zone. The first big cetacean we found was “Top Notch,” the humpback whale that has a notch taken out of its dorsal fin. It’s been a few months since we’ve seen this individual, and it was busy spending a lot of time underwater before surfacing for 3 or 4 breaths. After a visit with Top Notch we turned north and very quickly spotted 2 southbound migrating gray whales. Both were large whales and they were moving at 5 knots or more to the east. We did get alongside them a few times and had some wonderful looks. You can see from the photograph above that the water out in the Channel is still very clear and blue, making whale photography a special treat.
Friday we run a 1pm trip and Saturday we’ll have a special 10am – 230pm whale watch so we can spend more time with our grays and humpbacks and Minkes and dolphins and and and…
You never know what Mother Nature has in store. Bob Perry Condor Express
I’ll get today’s photographs online in the morning.