The hottest of hot spots lights up sightings today !
About 6 miles south of Santa Barbara is where the many individual hot spots were on the way out this morning. Seabirds, sea lions, countless common dolphins (5,000 +) were all gorging themselves on the seemingly endless supply of anchovy schools. Of course the humpbacks were here and there on various of these hot spot too. Several of the #humpbackwhales came up to the Condor Express to make the usual introductions, and among these “early trip” humpback whales we found another mother-calf pair. Once again juvenile exuberance manifested itself in several full body breached that woke up even the most mesmerized #dolphin and whale watcher on board. Also working the various hot spots we observed a nice Minke whale.
After a nice long time observing these “early trip” or nearshore whales, a trip was made over to the western end of Santa Cruz Island and we paid our respects to the world famous Painted Cave. On the way home a strange thing happened. All of the individual and scattered hot spots had now become one massive area of marine carnage. Here we found 14 + humpbacks working the mass of anchovies all in one big hot hot hot spot. This place was on fire. And to add a dash of hot sauce to the end of the adventure, we pulled up on a very cooperative medium large ocean sunfish (Mola mola).
The weather was nice and is supposed to stay that way. You never know what Mother Nature has in store. Bob Perry Condor Express