A drive around the eastern Channel yields five humpback whales and a couple of hundred dolphins.
- Bob Perry
- 13 minutes ago
- 1 min read
Image: a mother humpback (rear) with her calf (front) in the Santa Barbara Channel.
2026 06–12 SB Channel
Captain Eddy and the crew drove a big loop out to the SE, and back home again. At our furthest point we were on the edge of the lanes S of platform Grace. Seas were glassy all day under a gray, high, stratus layer. We watched 5 humpback whales and 400 common dolphins.
Eddy drove E along the coast until he passed all of the Santa Barbara oil rigs, and then turned S. When we were N of Grace, there was a productive area. Our first sighting of the day was a mother humpback with her calf. (See today’s photograph for an example). The pair was moving slowly to the S, and had very short dive times… excellent for their fans. Nearby there was an area with a lot of small groups of dolphins, perhaps a total of 200. They appeared to be feeding subsurface, ad did a third whale that came in.
N of the lanes there was a couple of hundred more dolphins and 2 additional humpback whales…more subsurface feeding.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
