Image: a friendly humpback whale mugs the boat and proceeds with a super close spyhop.
2024 0-17 SB Channel - East
A high stratus layer was with us most of the day, with very little wind, and a 5-foot bump from the west motivated Captain Dave and the crew to go east. Sightings for the day were excellent: 3000 common dolphins, 2 humpback whales and, quick looks at 3 Minke whales.
We watched quite a few medium-large pods of dolphins that were spread out over a quarter of a mile just south of the Kelp Farm. As we move east, we found more groups and a couple of them were involved in medium sized BS2 birdnados. Even more dolphins were seen in the vicinity of the humpback whales that we watched next.
In the eastern flats, a few miles past Gina and Gail, near the mouth of Port Hueneme, we found two large adult humpback whales. We watched them for about an hour. During the first 20 minutes, they were making dives and coming up quite regularly…perhaps feeding subsurface. As if someone turned a switch, their behavior changed to becoming very Condor Express-focused. The whales mugged us on and off for the remainder of our sighting period. When I say “on and off,” I mean that the humpbacks went away for a few minutes, change their minds, and swam back to continue the mugging.
During these extra special friendly times, we were able to watch a couple of good tail throws, some sideways swimming with pec fin in the air, some rolling around, and of course, we heard vocalizations. At one point a friendly whale spy hopped so close to the bow it looked like it was going to scrape its chin on the railing. (See today’s photo for an example.) Finally, we were out of time and had to head back home. On the way back we passed slowly a pair of Minke whales, and then a single. We did not have time to stop and get set up, but good looks were had nevertheless.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
Comments