Spectacular winter whale watching with summer conditions.
- Bob Perry
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
2026 02–28 SB Channel
Once again, it is hard to believe that it is winter in the Santa Barbara channel. Seas were glassy all day, skies were sunny and people were wearing shorts and T-shirts. A special note: the water clarity was fantastic and enhanced all of our sightings.
Captain Dave and the crew ran 2 trips, one at 9 AM, the other at 12 noon. Both of them headed W along the coast, past UCSB. Loads of marine life were seen and recorded throughout each trip. Here are the totals for the day: 2 gray whales, 20 blue sharks (we had really good looks at 15 of them), 14 humpback whales (we closely watched 10), 500 common dolphins, 15 coastal bottlenose dolphins and one Minke whale.
The morning adventure had very good looks at 2 adult gray whales. They were Nbd about 5 miles off of Goleta Bay. Dave estimated at least 50 and blue sharks were seen at various times on this trip. All of them were small, less than 4 feet in length.
Moving a little bit W, a large, movable birdnado attracted at least 7 humpbacks. We got settled in and watched 3 of them closely. There were also quite a few common dolphins here.
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The afternoon excursion kicked off right away as we were able to follow a relatively large pod of coastal bottlenose dolphins from Ledbetter W to More Mesa. We left them astern and headed up the coast to a position 2 miles off platform Holly. A breach in the distance led us to our first humpback of this trip. We had good looks, and then quick looks at 3 more.
Dave and the crew moved a few miles further W off of Sands Beach where we watched 3 additional, and very cooperative, humpbacks. They exhibited long surface times and short dives. (All of the humpbacks today were adults). In our best interaction of the day, the trio mugged the Condor Express and everybody on board went wild. (See today’s photo for an example). As we turned to go home, a solitary Minke made a close pass, and there was one additional humpback that we saw on a drive-by basis.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
NOTE: 3 of the humpback whales that we saw today cooperated by showing their flukes so that naturalist Dino, and whale tale expert Susanne, could photograph them and look up their identification information in www.happywhale.com Here are their CRC (Cascadia Research Collective) identification numbers, and some notes, in case you want to look them up or track them yourself. Thank you Susanne and Dino!
CRC-16792
A female. Has been reported six times since 2012. It was last seen near Nayarit Mexico (N of Puerto Vallarta).
CRC-22869
Has been recorded 3 times since 2024. The last one was in 2025, and all sightings were in California.
CRC-19578
First recorded in 2021, this individual has nine sightings in Happywhale. It’s furthest travel was documented near Acapulco, Mexico.
