An enormous number of friendly cetaceans including Black Rakes
- Bob Perry
- Jul 21
- 2 min read
2025 07–21 SB Channel
The streak continues! We had overcast skies and no wind in our area of The Channel today. We were once again blessed with extremely clear water to enhance the sightings of our mammals. Totals include: 2000 common dolphins, 15 humpback whales (We closely watched 8), 1 Minke whale and 35 California sea lions.
We began seeing dolphins just south of The Farm. As has been the case all week, there were dolphins everywhere. No real mega pods today. Our first pod contained about 300 individuals. Around the same time a friendly Minke whale stayed with us right alongside for about five breathing cycles.
Merely 1/4 mile south of this location we found “Black Rakes,” a somewhat famous humpback because of its white tail that has been scarred by an early-in-life Orca incident which left the black scars they given its name. (for reference see today’s photo above) Black Rakes was first seen in 2014, and we see it regularly. In the winter, it has traveled south as far as Puerto Escondido near the southern tip of Mexico. Today BR was up quite a lot and had only short dives.
Continuing south a short distance, we came into an area with 8 whales. A pair of them, sub-adults, had short dive times and we got great looks.
Continuing South, we found 5 more whales. All of them were exhibiting social behavior that included vocalization and a lot of rolling around. Two of them came over and mugged the boat for about an hour. It was a very close mugging with whales actually touching our hull. They swam around upside down, there were double spy hops, and a great opportunity to look eye-to-eye with some friendly beasts.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
