Humpbacks, birdnados and a Minke.
- Bob Perry
- Apr 15
- 2 min read
2025 04-15 SB Channel
Captain Dave and the crew ran a single, 9 AM public whale watch trip. The sky had a high stratus layer, the ocean was mill pond flat glass. Sightings for the trip included: one Minke whale and five humpback whales.
We ran southeast in the general direction of Platform Habitat. We stopped along the way to do a narrated tour of Platform Charlie during which Dave’s talked about the oil and gas industry as well as everything you would like to know about the platforms.
Out near Habitat we spent about 20 minutes watching a very nice adult Minke whale. It went about its business diving and surfacing. It happened to make 2 very close passes by the Condor Express during which we had excellent looks at this little whale.
After altering course and heading west, parallel to the coast, we encountered a large number of birdnados. When we were about 9 miles south of The Harbor, and just south west of The Farm, we found two individual feeding humpback whales amongst the birds. (See today’s photo for an example). Both whales were independently and repeatedly sideways lunge-feeding. A NatGeo moment!
We were getting ready to leave the area and head home when we saw the spout of a third humpback whale about a half a mile away. Once we had our eyes on the whale, it breached three times and did a couple of nice chin slaps. Later, when we were just 2 miles outside the Harbor we found a pair of humpback that were surface feeding close to shore.
As a side note, the region is still full of Velella, and some of them have drifted into The Harbor, died, and are beginning to add a special aroma to the sea air.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
