Two trips were rich in humpback whale and dolphin action.
- Bob Perry
- Apr 24
- 2 min read
2025 04–24 SB Channel
Captain Dave and the team ran two trips today. The morning trip found it mostly sunny with light wind. The afternoon had it mostly sunny with occasional stratus patches. Throughout the day there was a small swell from the northwest. Total sightings for the day Included: 9 humpback whales, 110 common dolphins, 30 offshore bottlenose dolphins and 1 young northern elephant seal.
We had not traveled far on the morning trip when a small pod of common dolphins located us. They came over and played with the boat for a while, then got busy feeding on a big birdnado. Soon after we came in to an area and watched four humpback whales. At first we had a pair and one of them was Scarlet, a famous whale that I described earlier this week, with an adult friend. The pair was in slow travel mode but did find time to make a couple of close passes. Throughout the encounter they made very short, two minute, dives.
Not far away we watched two single whales that were also in travel mode and were good flukers. On our way home we were approached by a friendly pod of offshore bottlenose dolphins. There were plenty of calves in the group and they made a few friendly passes during which time they played in our waves. The final sighting of the morning adventure was the big fat head of an elephant seal, the head being what we generally see. Typically, and again the day, they seal watches us for a while and then slowly sinks vertically down into the water column.
We were just north of The Farm on the noon adventure when we came upon a single, giant sized (probably female) humpback whale. This one had a distinctive hook to the top of its dorsal, so I’m hopeful one of the staff will send it in for an ID. To the west we found a mother humpback with her calf. Mom did a couple of sideways luunge feeds on the surface, but her next lunges were vertical. (See today’s photo for example). Meanwhile the little calf was entertaining itself by rolling around, throwing its tail, and trying to imitate its mother’s sideways lunges. It did not appear to be actually capturing any prey, as it was a tiny whale and probably still nursing. Nonetheless… Learning starts young!
We moved on to another pair west of our previous location. Soon the original beast with the hooked tail came in and joined them.… she also threw her tail around a bit. On the way home we got into a small birdnado in which another 50 common dolphins were feeding.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
