Excellent whales and sea lions on an overcast day.
- Bob Perry
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Image: a nautical chart showing today’s track. Green and blue line are fast travel, warm tones mean slow or stopped… aka marine mammals. ( marinetraffic.com )
2025 11–01 SB Channel
It was a gray day with low-hanging stratus that never hit the deck or bothered our ability to spot wildlife. Seas were calm and, in the afternoon, a light breeze wafted across our neck of the channel. Captain Dave and the crew followed the path shown in today’s image (see above). Totals: 8 humpback whales, 100 California sea lions and 1 Minke whale.
Our first encounter was a competition pod of 3 very active whales (I’m assuming 1 large adult female, and two males). As we have reported frequently this week, there was a lot of body contact, chasing each other, spy hopping, swimming upside down and vocalizing. The trio became friendly with the Condor Express…very special!
California sea lions were interactive with the whales. As reported several times this week, there is a special dive cycle involving the two species. The whales dive down, soon thereafter the sea lions dive, after a while the sea lions popped back up to the surface… and it’s aways a good thing to watch these sea lions because that marks the spot where the whales return to the surface. 2 additional whales joined the group, but they had very long dive times and did not interact with the other others.
3 additional whales were watched for a while SE of the first spot. These had even longer dive times that ran 12 to 15 minutes.
On the way home when we passed through the rig line had good looks at a single Minke whale to round out the day.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
