Fabulous looks at nine humpback whales, and more.
Image: a very friendly humpback whale and a few of its fans on board the Condor Express.
2026 11–07 SB Channel
Captain Dave reports clear blue skies and nice sun today. There was no wind in the morning and a light breeze wafted through the Channel on our way home in the afternoon. The water color remains that super-clear Santa Barbara cobalt, which enhanced all of our sightings. Totals for the day: 75 common dolphins, 9 humpback whales (we closely watched 4 of them), and 15 California sea lions.
Our dolphin sightings came with one pod that we encountered north of the lanes adjacent to beautiful Chinese Harbor, Santa Cruz Island. We had good looks before continuing S. When we were 3 miles N of Chinese we had a quick look at a single humpback whale. After a brief surface interval, in dove and we lost track of it… unusual for such a nice sunny day.
Our friend Captain Devin aboard Velella called us inside Chinese where he was presently being mugged by a trio of humpback whales. Soon after that, a fourth whale joined the group and their antics moved to the Condor Express.
The 4 young adult adults continued their mugging behavior with us for over an hour. We saw numerous passes under the boat from one side to the other, (see today’s photo for an example) including some rolling upside down underwater. Both of these behaviors were greatly enhanced by the superior water clarity and their white pectoral fins. We also observed sideways tail swipes on the surface, some underwater bubble blasting, and finally some playing in our jet wash. At least 15 California sea lions were messing around with the whales.
There were additional spouts all around, adding at least 4 more whales to our total account.
Bob Perry
NOTE:
A trio of whale tail ID specialists, Isabel, Susanne and Mark, were on board today and we were able to positively identify 2 of the whales that were mugging us using the citizen scientist database, www.happywhale.com
Thanks to our 3 specialists, here are their identification numbers so you can look them up, or if you have good tail fluke photographs, you can add them to the data base yourself. Here they are:
CRC-21583
CRC-18978
