Mellow whales and dolphins on a sunny day. We saw a sea lion/humpback pair!
- Bob Perry
- Jul 22
- 2 min read
2025 07–22 SB Channel
For the first time in about a week the sun broke out early and we had a nice bright blue sky for the rest of the trip. Seas were calm. Sightings for the day: 3000 common dolphins, 9 humpback whales (we watched 6), and 25 California sea lions.
There were common dolphins around all day, as we have experienced for the last week. We found our first pod (of about 200 animals ) while we were still north of the farm. They were milling around but got interested in the boat and we stayed with them for a while and had great looks. The dolphins were particularly abundant near the whales.
After one of Captain Eddy’s famous offshore oil and gas platform tours, we continued southwest and almost immediately found our first whale of the day. Now here was a great sight. It was a juvenile whale with a California sea lion “buddy.” The two were inseparable. They were playing around. The sea lion leaped here and there, especially around the rostrum of the whale. The whale spy hopped in a normal manner, then it made a similar move with the tail coming up first… sometimes called a “head stand.” (See today’s photo for an example of this kind of behavior).
The second whale wasn’t far away, and it was in travel mode. It had short dive times and big tail flukes. The same was true of the next whale, not too far to the south west. At one point it swam completely under the boat from one side to the other. We had a fabulous view on both sides of the boat.
A breach in the distance led us to an area with 6 whales. We watched 3 of them and then ran out of time. The whale closest to us did a mighty tail throw…spectacular! Two additional whales joined it and they move slowly southwest.
You never know what mother nature has in store
Bob Perry
