Sunny skies with a moderate bump yield 11 epic humpback whale sightings and a mob of sea lions including one individual that surfed our bow.
- Bob Perry
- May 24
- 2 min read
2025 05–24 SB Channel
Captain Eddy and the crew headed to the west of Platform Holly. They experienced sunny skies all day along with glassy seas. However there was a moderate western bump that kept things “nautical”. Totals for the day included: 11 humpback whales and 300 California sea lions. In addition, the crew removed one deflated, floating, balloon (A.k.a. death bag) from the ocean surface.
10 of the 11 whales that we watched closely today were adults, and all of them were engaged in sub surface feeding at one point or another during our time with them. Things got started when we were about 8 miles offshore, south east of Holly. We located a mother humpback with her calf. While mother did some deep dive/feeding, The calf threw its tail around and made a couple of friendly approaches to the Condor Express. Most of the sightings today including this one involved A mob of several hundred California sea lions that were following the whales. One may assumes the whales helped the sea lions locate food and also provided by-catch for their consumption. It’s always fun to see these marvelous furry animals. One curious sea lion even surfed our bow wave! (See today’s photograph for an example).
Another nearby pair of adult whales joined the mother/calf pair and the foursome went on feeding together. We moved a bit west, attempting to get as far in that direction as we could before the wind came up. Once again we found two separate pairs of whales. One of them had a huge piece of its tail fluke missing. It was an old, well healed wound and did not deter the whale from normal diving and swimming behaviors.Our friend Mark was on board and will surely find the identify of this distinctive creature for us later. (Thanks Mark!)
From our location west of Holly, we finally turned back to the east and put the swell astern for a more comfortable ride. Before long, we found another pair of whales, as before, they were feeding subsurface. A single whale was seen breaching in the distance and most everyone got some good looks. On the way home we stopped quickly on the last pair because we were running out of time.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
