Image: a vertical lunge-feeding humpback whale shows off its dripping wet baleen
2023 11-04 SB Channel
We were in the sun with blue skies all day, with Captain Dave and the crew actively dodging a few scatted fog banks. Seas were calm. We closely watched 15+ humpback whales, 200 California sea lions and 2000 long-beaked common dolphins.
Just 4 miles outbound from Santa Barbara Harbor we watched a large pod of dolphins and a single humpback whale. Dolphins would be seen in much smaller pods all day, except on the way home a second mega pod was observed.
A bit east of the first dolphin/whale encounter, we watched an additional 4 humpbacks. These were vertical lunge-feeding repeatedly on a ball of northern anchovies. In a nonchalance somewhat atypical of California sea lions groups, we watched a mob of at least 30 of these brown, furry mammals totally relaxed, pectoral flippers in the air, and thermoregulating on this sunny day….all within a few dozen feet of the surface lunging activities! (See today’s photo for a vertical lunging example).
We continued south, not quite reaching The Lanes, and found lots of dolphin/whale hot spots. One of the last spots had what we think was a mother-calf pair, the calf being pretty big.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store,
Bob Perry Condor Express, and
We were on this trip and it was fantastic. Thank you for providing my friends visiting from Kansas such a spectacular show - they loved every minute.