Humpback whales, dolphins, sea lions!

Image: a young humpback whale is shown spy-hopping to get a good look at the Condor Express where all of its fans were waving.

2026 05–15 SB Channel

There was a thick, grey stratus layer that kept things on the cool side except for a few sunny “sucker holes” when we got close to beautiful Santa Cruz Island. The sea was bumpy but there was not much wind. Captain Dave and the crew ran out to beautiful Santa Cruz Island and ended up S of the lanes where we finally found abundant wildlife. Total sightings: 750 common dolphins, 100 California sea lions, and 8 humpback whales (we closely watched 4). Our deckhand Aspen picked up a Mylar balloon from the ocean surface when we were on our way out.

About 2 miles outside the Harbor we went through a rather large area with scattered individuals, duos and trios of common dolphins. Altogether, there may have been as many as 350. Since they were never any big groups, we didn’t get much attention from them today at this point.

We found a wonderful active raft/mob of at least 100 California sea lions a few miles S of the first dolphin zone. There must’ve been some great feeding going on sub-surface as the mob dove and resurfaced repeatedly in synchrony. It is always great to see the real deal, not just a bunch of lazy individuals sitting on the harbor entrance buoy. (My unbiased opinion).

We reached a point close to the island and S of the lanes, then captain Dave turned the boat and slowly moved W against the oncoming chop. When we were N of the Painted Cave and W end of the island, we found an area with lots of spouts. There were at least 8 spouts in a half a mile circle. One of the whales was identified as “Kink“ who we have seen a lot this last week. Some of the whales started out alone and formed pairs, some formed trios. When groups formed, there was socialization, rolling around, and towards the end…a nice spy hop. (See today’s photo for an example).

On the way home we encountered a category 5 birdnado which was generated by a nice pod of 400 additional common dolphins. A great way to punctuate the trip!

You never know what mother nature has in store.

Bob Perry

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