A remarkable humpback hotspot near UCSB.

Image: A humpback whale breach in the Santa Barbara Channel.

2024 03-21 SB Channel 

The high stratus layer that kept the scene gray in the morning broke to a mostly sunny sky. The ocean surface was flat but there was some residual bumpiness from overnight winds. We ran both a 9a and 12n trip today. Total sightings for the day: 14+ humpback whales and 1 gray whale.

Both excursions found and explored the same hot spot near UCSB. The morning trip closely watched 6 humpbacks, and the afternoon found 8 with more in the area. As the Condor Express pulled away from the humpbacks to head home from the morning trip, a whale breached behind the boat (see today’s photo for an example). In the afternoon, 2 of the whales got very friendly with the boat and excellent looks were had by all.

As the morning trip headed up to The Campus, a single northbound gray whale was watched…then we saw all the humpback spouts!

You never know what Mother Nature has in store.

Bob Perry

Condor Express, and

CondorExpressPhotos.com