O-M-G !
- Bob Perry
- 12 minutes ago
- 2 min read
2025 10–25 SB Channel
A Fall classic…probably the best autumn whale watch so far this year. Captain Eddy and the crew ran S and ended up very close to the lanes. Overcast skies quickly cleared to sun. The sea surface was glassy, with just a tiny bit of bump. Sightings for the trip: 300 California sea lions, 20 coastal bottlenose dolphins, 3000 common dolphins and 26 humpback whales (we closely watched 9).
A large pod of coastal bottlenose dolphins was moving up the coast as we nosed out of the harbor. We followed along with them until just past Leadbetter. A great way to start the day!
A very relaxed, sunbathing raft of 12 California sea lions would mark the beginning of a day full of these furry creatures. They were embedded with common dolphins, and were around the whales everywhere we went today.
Our first humpback of the day was nearby. It was one of several juveniles that we would see and it made a couple of close approaches. It had some nice tail flutes for us as well.
As we turned E, we encountered a highly active juvenile. It approached the boat from the port side, dove under the boat, and then took off with a full-body breach on the starboard side. It was quite unexpected and people gasped… and lamented the fact that they didn’t have time to get their cameras focused! The same beast did a series of tail throws before calming down and moving into some slow travel. Most cameras got lucky on that part.
S of the lanes there was a 2 mile long spread of common dolphins. The area had at least 20 humpback whales. There was nowhere near enough time to visit all of them. Our first close encounter was a group of 5 that contained at least 1 competition group. We observed a lot of body-bumping, trumpet vocalization, rolling around, and chin slaps (see today’s photo for an example). Several of the whales came close to the Condor Express completely at random.
Soon we were “discovered” by a pair of extremely friendly, “equal opportunity,” humpbacks. They mugged the boat for at least 20 minutes straight and worked both sides of the boat (equally) so that no one felt ignored. There were several close spy hops.
On the way home we had adequate looks at 4 additional whales, but did not have time to stop on any of them. This would’ve been a good day to run an eight hour trip. IMHO.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
