Perfect day at Santa Cruz Island for gray whales and dolphins.
- Bob Perry
- 16 hours ago
- 2 min read
2026 01–18 SB Channel
Captain Dave reported calm seas and mild, Santa Ana conditions creating an almost summer-like atmosphere in the middle of winter. Total sightings: 15 coastal bottlenose dolphins, 25 offshore bottlenose dolphins, 2 blue sharks and 2 gray whales. In addition, the Condor Express crew removed 2 floating, deflated, Mylar balloons from the ocean surface.
Our marine mammal encounters got started quickly as a large pod of coastal bottlenose dolphins located the boat just 3/4 of a mile off the Harbor. As typical for the species, they were around the boat a lot which made everyone very happy.
Stopping only once to pick up the first balloon, we ran straight across the entire channel and ended up near the painted cave on the West End of Santa Cruz Island. Dave ran W along the beautiful sea cliffs and grottos as he gave one of his famous, short interpretations regarding the island’s formation, ecology, and historic human habitation. Many people saw 2 small blue sharks that stayed on the surface for a while as we slowly motored by.
As gray whales migrate along the California coast to their mating and calving grounds in the lagoons of Baja California, they swim S until reaching the California Bight. As the coastline trends E, the grays take a straight line swim. Some travel along the N face of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, while some, perhaps more than half, cut in between the islands and continue their journey down their S side. Consequently the western end of Santa Cruz island is one of those places where grays might continue down the face of the island, or swim through the Santa Cruz Channel and end up on the backside. Frequently we are able to witness gray whales swimming back-and-forth, sometimes in circles, perhaps “deciding” which way to go. Humans would probably just flip a coin.
Thus, today was one of the days where we intercepted 2 migrating Leviathans swimming in seemingly erratic and random patterns, often with long dive times. At one point they surfaced right next to the boat. During the southbound migration grays are often frisky. Today we saw several examples of close body contact, rolling around, etc. There was even more rolling around when a small pod of offshore bottlenose dolphins came through the area and interacted with the whales. It is such fun to watch the two different species interact.
The second balloon was retrieved on the way home.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
NOTE: while I was digging through my image catalog searching for gray whales at the West End, I stumbled across a winter day in 2009. Among the whale shots I found the above portrait of my friend (everybody’s friend) CINC ambassador to the calm and cetacean-rich ocean in the sky. RIP.
