Capt Eric snapped this pectoral slapping humpback on his cell phone today.
Quality
Today we had some high quality mammal observations.
There were at least 1,000 long beaked common dolphins waiting for the Condor Express just outside Santa Barbara Harbor. They stayed and played as they took us up the coast a little ways. From here we turned offshore to find 3 very friendly and entertaining humpback whales. The sun was bright and the sea conditions improved a lot since yesterday. Among the 3 humpbacks there was one juvenile that mugged the boat several times in between short dives. Later this juvenile joined up with a pair of larger whales and the two big ones immediately rolled on their backs side by side and started slapping their pectoral flukes. They, too, took some short dives, then surfaced and continued slapping where they left off. Meanwhile, all this was accompanied by junior, the original humpback, trumpeting and vocalizing as if to provide background music to the visual entertainment. On the way home we located 2 gray whale mother-calf pairs which rounded out the day of high quality interactions. Sometime it is truly “quality” over “quantity.”
You never know what Mother Nature has in store. Bob Perry Condor Express
PS…Later this week maybe I’ll post up the REAL story of the entangled humpback whale that was set free last Thursday. Stay tuned to this Channel.