Amazing sightings of 4 different cetacean species and one 6 foot diameter fish.

Image: humpback whales are not vegetarians! But they sure do like to rub their bodies in giant kelp and other macroalgae. Here’s one that is kelping.

2026 05–25 SB Channel

Captain Eddy and the crew (Isabel and Camille) report calm seas with super clear water. On the way home there was a fresh breeze.  Hold onto your hats, today’s totals were amazing: 1 ocean sunfish (Mola mola), 1000 common dolphins, 4 humpback whales, 5 giant blue whales (we spent quality time with 1), and 6 offshore bottlenose dolphins.

Similar to yesterday, we found a very large ocean sunfish (Mola mola), about 6 feet in diameter, actively feeding on purple sailor jellies (Velella velella) which are still very abundant in the Channel. As with the rest of our sightings today, the super clear water greatly enhanced the scene. After a while we continued on our path SW in the general direction of Carrington Point, Santa Rosa Island.

In the lanes, S of the buoy, when we got involved in a BS-3 birdnado. It contained at least 1000 common dolphins and 4 humpback whales. Among the humpbacks we watched 1 solo individual, plus a mother and her very young/small calf, plus their escort. They appear to be feeding sub-surface. The first single individual engaged in some very active kelping (See today’s photograph for an example). The calf, as previously mentioned, was very young and stuck close to mom‘s side except when mom dove… and… to surprise everyone on board with a sudden, massive, full-body breach about 30 feet off of our bow! 

SW of the lanes there was a 1 mi² area with at least 5 very tall spouts. In the time we had remaining, we were able to get set up on 1 of these giant blue whales. We stayed with it for 2 surface intervals and, lucky for us, it kicked up its massive tail fluke on both of its soundings.  

As we were finishing our time with this giant beast, a small group of offshore bottlenose dolphins swam by to put some closure on our amazing species list for the day.

You never know what mother nature has in store.

Bob Perry

condorexpressphotos.com

NOTE: once again maestro Mark O’Brien was on board today and identified the escort mentioned in my report. (Remember you can find out more information about any of these whales, and put them in the database yourself ], if you capture pix of humpback tail flukes and use www.happywhale.com like Mark and I do.)

Here’s the information about the escort:

It is CRC-19855, recorded 24 times before today. It was first sighted/recorded in 2021, and it’s most recent record before today, was on May 16 of this year. The range of its sightings run from Morro Bay California in the north, to Cabo San Lucas, BCS, Mexico, in the south.

23 of it’s 24 sightings were in the Santa Barbara Channel!