Drop dead gorgeous conditions with loads of whales, dolphins, sea lions and majestic views.
- Bob Perry
- 18 hours ago
- 2 min read
2025 11–26 SB Channel
Wow! What a day in the Santa Barbara channel! There were light Santa Ana conditions, with super warm weather, clear skies and glassy seas. Captain Eddy reported he could see the individual canyons on Santa Rosa Island from the harbor. The water itself was also very clear, which enhanced our sightings, especially of the dolphins. Total sightings for the day included: 1 Minke whale, 50 California sea lions, 4000 common dolphins and 15 humpback whales (we closely watched 10). As a byproduct of the offshore wind associated with Santa Ana conditions, the ocean surface was covered with a lot of both anthropogenic and natural debris.
Just about 20 minutes after we left the Harbor we encountered a semi friendly individual Minke whale. We watched it through five or six of breathing cycles before we moved on to the SE.
All the rest of the action took place SE of platform Habitat near the edge of the lanes. There were dolphins around this area all day including a megapod of at least 1000 that accompanied the first whale we spotted. It was a juvenile whale, and fairly shy. We had a few good looks. It was busy…perhaps feeding subsurface. There was another megapod of dolphins associated with a large birdnado which included another whale.
As a final note, our deck hand and whale tail enthusiast, Isabel, was able to capture one of the rare tails that we saw today. She used happywhale.com skills to identify it as CRC-21134, named after the flower “Peony.” It’s been seen only 6 times, ranging from San Francisco Bay to Cabo San Lucas. (I recorded it in the Channel myself back in May, coincidentally).
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
