Image: A humpback whale surfaces with forward motion.
2023 09-18 SB Channel
There was no marine layer today! Bright blue and sunny skies, calm seas and (in the afternoon) a light breeze provided a great backdrop for our mammal sightings. We closely watched: 1 Minke whale, 2500 long-beaked common dolphins, 200 California sea lions, 40 short-beaked common dolphins and 3+ humpback whales.
A large Minke whale surfaced next to the boat and we got great, close looks at it. At the time we were only 3 mile south of the harbor. A bit further south we started getting into the long-beaked common dolphin pods. There were lots of long-beaks around and each sighting included watching them surf our wake. Sea lions were also in the mix. Lots of high-flying short-beaked common dolphins were also found near this first wildlife area.
East of The Buoy was another nature-rich area and, in addition to the sea lions and long-beaked common dolphins, we found and located a lot of humpback whales. We closely watched 3 of them with plenty more all around the area. The first whale was small and on a high-speed swim to the east. It fluked up once every 4 dives so we soon recognized it to be our pal “Toa” who we saw over the weekend. Our second whale was a juvenile, and the third, a larger adult.
Toa breached several times and followed each aerial activity with a series of trumpet vocalizations. Toa moved over to follow the third whale for a while and the pair made several close approaches to the Condor Express before splitting up and heading west.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
Condor Express, and
CondorExpressPhotos.com