Giant blue whale, fin whales, 25 humpback whales, and dolphins.

Image: perhaps the most powerful natural fire hose in the world, a giant blue whale’s spout in the Santa Barbara Channel.

2026 05–07 SB Channel

All the action was in the separation zone around the middle of beautiful Santa Cruz Island, and here are the totals for the day: 75 common dolphins, 25 humpback whales (we closely watched 12), 1 giant blue whale, and 2 giant fin whales. Although it was sunny and bright, there was quite a bit of a bump left over from overnight winds to the west and a fresh breeze did magical things with tall spouts.

All of the dolphins were together in 1 pod about 3 miles S of the Harbor. Captain Dave circled the Condor Express and provided an equal opportunity for all of them to get some nice surfing done. It was like an open ocean version of Kelly Slater‘s Surf Ranch.

What follows is a chronicle of the nonstop action which commenced with some nice spouts that belonged to the first 2 pairs of humpback whales.

— while watching the humpback duo, a half mile away a very tall spout led us to a massive adult blue whale. The beast had 9 minute downtime but followed the typical blue whale circular surface swim pattern with short, 2 minute, mini dives, before sounding again. (Random and copious red feces were seen from time to time on the surface… proving the beast were feeding on krill subsurface). We used the giant blue as a reference point for all the other action taking place all around us.

— there were 25 or 30 humpback whales in the vicinity.

—2 additional humpbacks popped up to the surface and by random chance were right next to us.

— the giant blue whale finally sounded and, right then and there, another humpback popped up as if it was “on top” of the giant blue…very unexplainable.

— next came an additional two pairs of humpbacks. One of them was a mother with a very active calf. The calf did a lot of chin slaps and then proceeded to go aerial with two, full body, spinning, breaches. The choreography was impeccable. 

— two additional humpback whales came very close to the Condor Express. Again we had great looks.

— captain Dave had to “put on the brakes” (boats don’t have brakes) as 2 extremely large adult fin whales came to the surface right off of our bow. These beasts were huge, second only to the blue.

— running short on time, but an additional 2 pairs of humpback whales were observed before we bid a fond adieu to this zone of cetacean joy.

You never know what mother nature has in store.

Bob Perry

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