Again, team Condor beat the fog with stupendous numbers of whales and dolphins.
- Bob Perry
- Aug 9
- 2 min read
2025 08–09 SB Channel
Captain Dave and the crew reported a gray, low stratus layer today interrupted by periods of dense, zero visibility fog. Although there was no wind, there was a continuous small chop coming from the west…but much better than yesterday!
Our route today took us southwest until we passed the farm, then we turned directly west to a point about 5 miles south of UCSB. We moved south and spent a lot of time in the buoy area before turning north and back to the Harbor. Sightings for the day were very good: 18+ humpback whales and 4000 common dolphins.
Common dolphins were seen all day. Groups of several hundred were scattered here and there once we passed the farm. As the day progressed we encountered larger and larger pods, especially around whale activity and birdnados.
As we were watching our first groups of dolphins, the first humpback seen was breaching in the distance. As we moved in that general direction a tight trio was very active…a lot of socializing was going on. (See today’s photo for an example of socializing behavior). It was two adults in one juvenile in close contact with a lot of rolling around, sideways swimming, vocalization, some head lifts and several tail throws. This was by far the most active group of the day.
Nearby, with a large group of dolphins, there were two individual whales engaged in slow travel to the east. Two more were seen near the buoy. At that point we turned east and about 2 miles later found several very large birdnados firing off. We slowed down and there were whales all around us. We watched at least 10 and there were many more spouts that we did not have time to investigate. As we were watching all the whale biomass there were several episodes of lunge feeding.
On the way back to the Harbor we drove past an additional pair of whales that we did not have time to get set up on.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
Note: Kudos to the Condor Express team. On days like this, when it’s a little bit bumpy and there’s a lot of fog, everybody pitches in to locate the whales and keep passengers comfortable.
