One of the all time humpback and dolphin trips of the year.
- Bob Perry
- Jul 10
- 2 min read
2025 07-10 SB Channel
Things started off with an east breeze and a whole lot of steep chop from overnight winds. As the day progressed, the wind flopped out and the surface was nearly perfect. The sun was bright and sunny all day. Sightings were phenomenal: 4000 common dolphins, 13+ humpback whales, 100 California sea lions, 10 Ocean sunfish (Mola mola), and 10 coastal bottlenose dolphins.
Just outside The Harbor a little group of 5 common dolphins greeted us and we all sized literally everywhere we went. At least 6 birdnados developed, and 2 of them were large. As I have mentioned many times, on days like this it is difficult to accurately estimate the total number of these little dolphins, but we did the best we can. The first birdnado was around 11:00am, and nearby, the first big dolphin stampede of this very active day. Most every dolphin and birdnado had a cadre of sea lions nosing around.
At 11:35am our eagle-eyed deckhand, Isabel, got her binoculars on our inaugural whale. I was small and spent a lot of time beneath the surface. We saw its tail flukes once. And then the real fun began.
Shirley, a Channel Islands Naturalist Corps on board doing humpback whale photo ID tasks, spotted a whale at least 3 miles south of our location. On site, we found the whole territory festooned with tall spouts, everywhere we looked. In addition to the sea conditions improving, Shirley’s whale became at least 13, some thought it was more like 20. We saw spouting, a single instance of sideways surface lunge feeding, a few fast tail flukes, trumpet vocalizations, chortle/chatter vocalizations, several distant breaches, and a champion pectoral fin slapper (that almost immediately seemed to “cause” 4 other whales in the distance to start slapping, too), an upside down slapper (see today’s photo), and several instances of close approaches that turned into actual muggings.
On the way home, just outside The Harbor, a pod of about 10 large coastal bottlenose dolphins came to the boat for some good looks at their fans.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
