Hotspot area produces 30 humpback whales and more.

Image: one of many hungry adult humpback whales today did vertical, surface, lunge feeding maneuvers very close to the boat. Picture taken on today’s trip.

2026 07–05 SB Channel

Captain Eddy and the crew drove us S to the edge of the lanes and back. We experienced sunny skies all day with a moderate breeze that caused whitecaps. However, there was no ground swell, so conditions were good for seeing whales perform aerial antics and surface. Total sightings for the day: 3 humpback whales (we closely watched 18), 2500 common dolphins, and 100 California sea lions.

We got near the hotspot zone at 11:05 AM. The observations got started with 5 individual humpbacks, lots of dolphins and a handful of sea lions. We slowly motored around, and got good looks…spending quality time. At 11:55 AM, there were 2  more individuals and more dolphins. There was a whale that breached twice in the distance.

At this point, 12:10 AM, we fully entered a vast hotspot area with all sorts of marine mammals and sea birds. We observed 2 more whales and 1 of them did a vertical lunge close to the boat. (See today’s photo above, which I took today). At 12:20, 3  additional whales were observed. It looked like a mother, with a large calf, and an escort. The calf did a lot of swimming off to the side while the “escort paid a lot of attention” to the mother. Mom did a series of 3 sideways lunges.

A pair and 2 single whales (total 4 more) were recorded… along with plenty of dolphins and more sea lions.

There were of schools of bait in the hot spot area today, but it was broken up into small, tiny patches. This led to a lot of swimming around and searching, followed by a single lunge, before going back to searching. The bait also seemed to be deeper which favored seeing a lot of tail flakes being kicked up. Lots of cool fluke-identification photographs were taken.

You never know what other nature has in store.

Bob Perry

marinebiophotography.com