Mugging, lunge-feeding, and our old pal Black Rakes!
- Bob Perry
- Apr 18
- 2 min read
2025 04-18 SB Channel
It was another one of those spring stratus layers that kept things nice and cool all day. There was a light bump on the water and even some small white caps in the afternoon… nothing too severe! Captain Dave and the crew ran two trips: 9 AM and 12 noon. Total sightings for the day consisted of 10 humpback whales and 50 common dolphins. Velella remain abundant everywhere.
On the morning excursion we spent most of the time with an active juvenile whale. It was busy feeding on the surface using sideways lunges. If that wasn’t fun enough, during this session we had a simultaneous visit by 50 curious and friendly common dolphins. The action took place south of The Farm.
We were south east of The Farm on the afternoon trip and our first sighting was a pair of whales. One of them was an old friend of ours by the name of Black Rakes. (Please see today’s image above). It’s distinctive tail pattern was caused by killer whale teeth dragging, or “raking” across the tail flukes. Curiously, when the white portion of a humpback gets raked it leaves black scars. Conversely, the black portion leaves white scars. The pair engaged in some side lunges, and even one vertical lunge, on the abundant surface bait fish schools.
Multiple spread out spouts and a breach about a mile south lead us to an area with at least 6 more whales. They were all spread out, some singles and a few pairs, across a wide swath. Two of them happened to pop up right next to the Condor Express, got very friendly, and mugged us for quite a while. If you didn’t get a selfie you must’ve been sleeping.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
