The mainland shelf region produced great whale and dolphin antics today.
- Bob Perry
- Jul 11
- 2 min read
2025 07-11 SB Channel
A gray marine layer finally lifted to sunny skies after noon. The light breeze and light chop on the surface subsided, too. Captain Dave and the crew took us south west to an area about 8 miles off the beach, between Hope Ranch and Goleta. Sightings were very good again today: 7 humpback whales, 50 offshore bottlenose dolphins, 50 California sea lions and 5000 common dolphins.
Our first sighting was a single humpback at 10:50am. Deckhand Isabella, a professional spotter, directed us to the target to break the ice. This whale made a nice, inadvertent close approach as it surfaced next to the Condor Express after a deep dive. Later, after our offshore bottlenose dolphin session, the same whale got friendly again accompanied by a sea lion. Many of the whales today were with sea lion escorts/pests. A few of the whales seemed to not be bothered while a couple of others sounded loud trumpet vocalization solo riffs.
At 11:40am we found and watched 2 individual whales but we diverted south soon thereafter to study a megapod of common dolphins. Humpback whales probably swim upside down on the surface for many reasons, we saw 3. First, the dolphins were occasionally hunting anchovies as they came by. Second, males were attempting amorous relations underneath their desired partner. Finally, some “desired partners” were definitely not interested and swam upside down to prevent things from getting carried away too far…this is often accompanied by a swift tail slap on the head of the male…just to punctuate the message.
We found numerous pods of additional common dolphins of all sizes, most in the 250 – 500 range. Some were feeding and initiated small birdnados, and others were in travel mode. At 1:00 pm a single whale made a couple of vertical lunges in a birdnado, then went back to subsurface feeding. At 1:11 we saw a single, monster sized breach a few miles to the northeast. One and done.
Our final sightings consisted of a pair adult of whales moving around and feeding subsurface together. Also with the pair was a highly active lone sea lions that was everywhere around them…especially near their heads.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
