Calm seas, nice whales and dolphins near Santa Cruz Island

Image: Our track today. We left Santa Barbara and headed southwest towards the west end of beautiful Santa Cruz Island. (Yellow spots are places we slowed down to watch wildlife.)

2025 07–01 SB Channel 

We experienced super calm seas today with glassy conditions interrupted by a mild breeze. Skies had a thin stratus layer. Sightings for the day included: 2000 common dolphins and 3 humpback whales.

We ran into our first pod of 500 dolphins southwest of The Farm. They were traveling west very slowly. We got back on track towards the island.

Adjacent to Santa Cruz Passage (nicknamed “the gap”) we found another nice pod of 500 dolphins. They were doing a little bit of feeding in a small birdnado. There were 3 humpback whales at this spot. We located them from a distance because they were vertically lunge feeding. The beasts stopped feeding when we got close but they became very friendly and spent quite a bit of time swimming back-and-forth around the boat to the delight of everybody.

On the way home we ran into a legitimate megapod of 1000 dolphins to round out the day.

You never know what Mother Nature has in store.

Bob Perry

MarineBioPhotography.com