Stratus and smoke, calm seas, nice whales and a fabulous number of dolphins.
- Bob Perry
- Aug 13
- 1 min read
2025 08–13 SB Channel
Inland heat continues to drive the marine layer onshore and it was another gray day on the water. Several pieces of good news however: we experienced only a small bump on the water, and there was virtually no wind. Captain Dave and the crew headed west and ended up on a single hotspot about 9 miles south of platform Holly. Sightings included: 4500 common dolphins and 5 humpback whales.
An amazing number of common dolphins were in our region today. Our first sighting occurred as we were enroute to the west and 2 miles south of More Mesa. We saw small groups scattered about. On the hotspot, the size of the pods increased considerably.
The sharp eyes of deckhand Aspen spotted the first whale about a half a mile away. As we approached the last location of the whale, we found 2 juveniles. One of them immediately took to the air with a monster breach. (See today’s photo for an example).
There were 5 whales in the area, mixing and matching was going on. One whale mini-mugged the boat for about 20 minutes. This was almost exactly the same experience we had yesterday. Dave believes it was the same individual. There were numerous large birdnados firing off at this location.
On the way home, Dave stopped on several more dolphin megapods.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
Note: the gray stratus layer continues to be mixed with smoke from inland fires.
