Three individual humpback whales. One of them does some bubble net feeding!
- Bob Perry
- May 18
- 2 min read
2025 05–18 SB Channel
Conditions were sunny with no wind…practically perfect except for a light bump from overnight activity. Sightings for the day included 3 humpback whales and one Ocean sunfish (Mola mola ).
Our track today took us southwest past The Farm and ending up about 3 miles north of The Lanes. All 3 humpbacks we watched were solo, adult whales.
Our first encounter was highly unusual for the Santa Barbara Channel. Everything points to this being an example of a whale bubble net feeding. It emitted a wall of bubbles surrounding a school of anchovies then came up with a dramatic vertical surface lunge to feed on the condensed school. Some differences reported versus Alaskan bubble netting include the fact that this was a solo whale not a group, and the surrounding bubble net was more of a rectangle with four individual walls, not a circle. Nonetheless the strategy yielded the same results for both the whale and the anchovy population. AMAZING!
The second whale was just a mile away. It was zigzagging around and appeared to be searching with short down times. Other than that, it did not appear to do anything on the surface.
Yet another mile away we found our third whale. It fluked-up right in front of the bow after one of its close and friendly passes by the Condor Express.
Towards the end of the trip we also watched a very tame, small, Ocean sunfish (Mola mola). This one looked like one of its fins had been nipped, perhaps by a sea lion…they are known to do this. The little fish was very cooperative and never did dive or leave the surface.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
