Humpback and dolphins to Santa Rosa Island and back.

2021 12-18 SB Channel

Capt. Dave and the crew encountered flat seas with sunny skies except for small, shallow fog bank near the west end of Santa Cruz Island. Sightings today included 2 humpback whales, 75 offshore bottlenose dolphins and 1200 long-beaked common dolphins. The excursion ran across The Channel to Santa Cruz, then west to Carrington Point, and home again.

Five miles south of UCSB a herd of 500 or so common dolphins located the Condor Express. They rode our bow, side and stern waves. The group included a bunch of cow-calf pairs.

Near The Lanes a second, slightly smaller, group also found us. After searching along both islands, Dave turned home and, in The Lanes, found a lot of dolphin activity. First, we found and had great looks at a pod of active offshore bottlenose dolphins that spent lots of time surfing our waves. From a distance, we watched a pod of around 400 common dolphins approach the bottlenose but, suddently, they veered off at “stampede speeds.” A smaller pod of commons, even further away, joined their brothers and sisters in the high-speed run. Great to see!

About a mile after the great dolphin encounter, the same mother-calf humpback pair we saw yesterday was found and watched (again).

You never know what Mother Nature has in store. Bob Perry Condor Express, and CondorExpressPhotos.com