Image: a pair of giant blue whales in the Santa Barbara Channel.
2024 08–06 SB channel
Captain Dave and the crew Report NO FOG in The Channel today. It was clear, sunny, and a bit hazy. There was a light to medium chop on the water, especially when we to the outer islands. Sightings for the trip: 15 giant blue, Two humpback whales, 1 Minke whale, and 6000 common dolphins.
There were large pods, and megapods, of common dolphins all over The Channel. Multiple large pods were first seen just one and a half miles off Santa Barbara Harbor. As we moved along, we had one short encounter with a Minke whale in this area…just one surface interval before it disappeared from view. We were north of The Lanes when we ran into the largest megapod of the day which easily had 3000 individuals across a vast swath ocean.
Dave took advantage of the beautiful sunny skies and clear visibility to move the Condor Express to the far west. He had a whale watch captains’ “funny feeling in his bones” that this might be where the big ones were hanging out. Sure enough, one tall spout became two very large distinct groups of giant blue whales. The first group had at least eight that we closely watched, the second group 10+
The further we pushed to the west, more and more spouts and tails were seen. Whales were diving and kicking up their tail flukes at the same time as others were popping to the service and blasting some big spouts. There was action all around us…a blue whale dream! Two smaller and darker bodies in the mix turned out to be humpback whales. All the whales were feeding on krill below the surface. We never saw krill. We never saw lunge feeding. But we did see evidence in the form of red poop.
On the way home…more dolphins.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
Condor Express, and
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