Huge dolphin population, large numbers of humpbacks, and....a green sea turtle.
- Bob Perry
- Sep 17
- 2 min read
2025 09-17 SB Channel
Captain Eddy and the crew searched the northern area of the channel today under partly cloudy skies. Seas move from glassy calm to a moderate breeze and chop, then back to calm again. Totals for the day: 7000 common dolphins, 16 humpback whales (we watched 11 closely) and 1 green sea turtle.
The first dolphin megapod to locate the Condor Express was still N of the farm. We had wonderful looks. Soon after the dolphins move on, the crew thought they spotted a dead sea lion on the surface. Luckily, everyone was surprised to discover it was a green sea turtle that had invaded our waters along with warm sea surface temps from the remnants of northbound Mexican hurricanes. (See today’s photo from CINC Naturalist, Austin). A single humpback was watched here. A small birdnado kicked up and the whale deviated from its subsurface feeding and treated its fans on the Condor to a few vertical surface lunges.
Further S, and N of platform Habitat, an even larger abundance of dolphins was spread out over a wide area. There were at least 15 additional whales in the area. A larger birdnado formed and a trio of whales did some nice lunge-feeding. Another whale got plenty of attention by rising vertically up from the depths tail first just 50 feet off the bow, then holding its position, tail out of the water, for at least 30 seconds. This is often called a “head stand.” Afterwards, it did a surprise tail throw.
On the way home we saw more large aggregations of dolphins.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
Note: Thanks go out to Austin for taking time out from his Photo ID work with humpback tails to capture the nice turtle image. Deckhand Samantha took a video, too, and will no doubt post it to our social media.
