Juvenile blue whale, humpback whale and lots of active dolphin pods.

2022 07-24 SB Channel

There was a light breeze and a marine layer but for the final hour of today’s excursion. Seas were calm. Sightings were excellent: 1 blue whale, 1 humpback whale and 1000 long-beaked common dolphin.

Small coastal common dolphin pods became bigger offshore, as they have all week. A very productive hot spot was found after a nice search pattern took us around the East Channel NOAA buoy, into The Lanes, and finally to the action centered 5 miles south of El Capitan. Here we closely watched lots of dolphins and sea birds. After a while we moved towards a nearby spout which turned out to be from a juvenile giant blue whale. It was a wonderful whale to watch with 10 min. surface times.

As we enjoyed the blue whale, more dolphin herds and a single juvenile humpback whale traversed the zone. We had more great looks.

On the way home another large dolphin pod turned out to be full of mothers and calves…a nursery pod!

You never know what Mother Nature has in store.

Bob Perry

Condor Express, and

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