Rough seas got the humpback whales motivated.
Image: a collection of humpback whale tail-throwing episodes in the Santa Barbara Channel.
2026 09–11 SB Channel
Skies were sunny and clear all day. Seas were quite rough. There was a moderately heavy, short interval chop on top of a 6 foot ground swell. We experienced white caps and some spray all day. Captain Dave and the crew ran SW towards the buoy and then into the lanes. Sightings: 2500 common dolphins, 3 humpback whales and 1 Minke whale.
On our way to the buoy there was a very quick sighting of a Minke whale that came out of nowhere and only had 1 surface interval. Some passengers saw it, some did not.
We had better luck as we got closer to the buoy. There were at 4 distinct pods with 500-700 individual common dolphins in each. Personally I love watching these beasts when there’s a big swell and rough water. They are natural surfers… “the more waves the better” as far as they are concerned.
We moved into the separation zone and the sharp eyes of our deck hand Isabel saw a spout in the distance. (Isabel also identified one of these whales. See note at the end of this report). It turned out to be a group of 3 humpbacks. (Isabel also identified 1 of these whales. See note at the end of this report)
We witnessed a very close encounter with the container cargo ship “Ruby Tower,” which actually passed between the Condor Express and the whales we were watching. Captain Dave warned the captain about whales near us. The ship was traveling very quickly, at 18 kn, and did not move. Luckily no whales were harmed.
Completely unfazed by the big container ship, the 3 whales approached the Condor Express and got friendly. They swam up and down both sides of the boat, and spent some time right off the bow taking a look at their fans on deck. They broke out into a long episode of tail-throwing (See today’s photos for an example), which went on for quite a long time. In fact, we stayed overtime to watch them and as we pulled away and got underway back to the harbor, they continued throwing their tails in the distance. Besides being good exercise, throwing tails, as well as breaching, slapping pectoral fins, chin slaps, etc. help promote the development of myoglobin in the muscle tissue… an oxygen binding chemical… kind of like putting money in the bank for future activities.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
——————————
NOTE
Here is the information we found about the whale Isabel identified as CRC-16127. You can use this identification code to find and track this whale (and others) in the citizen scientist website, happywhale.com
The whale has been recorded 55 times since it was first observed in September 2014 here in California. It has been seen 45 times in Monterey Bay to the north, and it’s southernmost records come from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It’s most recent observation, before today, was in July of this year.
