Captain Dave warned the troops about how rough it was going to be out on the southwest Channel where we’ve been seeing all the humpback whales. So the hearty group hunkered down, grabbed a handrail and got ready for the bumpy ride into oncoming seas. Of course near the shore it was still quite nice with very little bump and no real wind. About 5 minutes past the sea lions on the entrance buoy, the first humpbacks were spotted. We were hardly 2 or 3 miles off the beach! No “Mr. Toad” wild ride at all!
The first sighing turned out to be a mother humpback whale and her calf. They meandered around the nearshore area as we closely watched for about an hour of very good sightings. At about this time a third, then a fourth humpback were seen, and pretty soon they all joined forces and it turned a good sighting into a great one. The two biggest whales fluked up quite regularly. All together we had five humpback whales on the trip.
As usual, everywhere we went we ran into pods of feeding common dolphins and sea birds. We can down play the dolphin totals and call it 2,000 without any exaggeration. There were a lot of dolphin calves in the pods we watched today. A giant sunfish (Mola mola), and egg yolk jelly, and numerous sea lions were also spotted.
It was a good trip and we never came close to even the mid Channel.
I’ll post the photos sometime tomorrow.
Bob Perry Condor Express