Eight humpbacks, 5 bottlenose dolphins and a lone northern elephant seal.
- Bob Perry
- May 22
- 2 min read

2025 05–22 SB Channel
Captain Eddy and the crew found good conditions for locating wildlife today. The sky was sunny with bit of lateral haze, and there was no wind. Our course took us southwest, past The Buoy and into The Lanes. Sightings for the trip included: 5 coastal bottlenose dolphins, 8 humpback whales, and 1 northern elephant seal.
The bow of the Condor Express had barely nosed out of The Harbor when a small pod of coastal bottlenose dolphins located the us, came over, and road our wake. We stayed with these dolphins as they move east towards Stearns Wharf, then we resumed our southwesterly course heading.
We were offshore and near The Buoy when we visited our first humpback whales. It was a pair of adults who seemed to be busy feeding subsurface. They showed good tail flukes and made a couple of close passes. A third whale was also in the area.
Continuing south into The Lanes, we found the remaining of the whales of the trip. We saw a single, another single, and a pair. All of them were zigzagging around, had long downtimes, and traveled long distances while they were submerged. Like the earlier whales, they did show good tail flukes but were otherwise a challenge to keep up with. Thanks to the talented crew we had great looks. A final Humpback whale was seen breaching three or four times about a mile away.
On the way home, we had a quick look at a single northern elephant seal that was floating vertically in the water column with only its head visible… as this species often does. This individual was “shy” and sank out of view.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry