Pleasant seas and a great variety of wildlife.
- Bob Perry
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
2025 05–15 SB Channel
Captain Dave and the crew reported excellent wildlife watching conditions today. Skies were sunny all day and not much wind. A slight residual bump from overnight conditions was felt particularly in the morning. Sightings for the day included: 7 humpback whales, 1 blue shark, 2 Risso’s dolphins, and 2 Northern elephant seals in the open ocean.
The first pair of whales was located SSW of The Farm. All of the whales today were adults. The pair split up fairly quickly and one of them did quite a bit of side lunge-feeding with his pectoral fin the air and some rolling around. A third whale was nearby and it had short downtime but was constantly moving/searching.
At this point a very small, less than 4 foot, blue shark was spotted on the surface along the starboard side of the Condor Express. It was very calm and did not dive so we had extended looks at this little predator.
Moving east, we found an additional 2 whales that were on the move and showed good tail flukes. Next we encountered two Risso’s dolphins. They came to the boat, rode our bow wave, and then left without saying goodbye.
Continuing east we found another 2 adult humpback whales and had some good looks. At this point we slowed down and had wonderful looks at a small female northern elephant seal that was sleeping in a vertical position on the surface. (See today’s photo for an example.)
On the way home we encountered a second elephant seal and had similar great looks.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store
Bob Perry