Wind, whales, waves, dolphins: all in abundance
- Bob Perry
- Jul 8
- 2 min read
2025 07–08 SB Channel
Captain Eddy and the crew took us west (up the coast) and we worked a series of hotspots about 4 miles offshore berween Hope Ranch and Goleta Bay. It was bright and sunny all day with good visibility. A light breeze during the first hour of the trip soon turned into white caps which got the wildlife animated. Total sightings for the day included: 7+ Humpback whales, 5000 Common dolphins, 100 California sea lions and a single Ocean sunfish (Mola mola).
At 10:30 we watched a small pod of 15 dolphins. There was a lot of socialization and, given the number of tail slaps, a certain amount of rejection going on in the mix. A half an hour later we had another pod of 20 that were going about their business without much socializing. We would see pods of various sizes throughout the trip including quite a few legitimate megapods.
At 11:10 our keen-eyed the deck hand, Cassidy, spotted a single whale which soon turned into three. They appeared to be feeding subsurface and moving around a bit but showed us good tail flukes. One of them would be seen later in a separate encounter. During this whale watching we moved through several more megapods of dolphins and quite a few California sea lions as well.
Just after 12 noon we located a mother humpback whale with her medium sized calf. Interestingly, while photographing their tail flutes for ID purposes, I quickly notice that mom featured a mostly white tail and “Junior” (not its real name) was pretty much all dark. Tail fluke colors are apparently not genetic. I need to read up on this.
Soon we came upon another whale with a nearby megapod of dolphins in a stampede. We would watch this giant group of dolphins for quite a while during the afternoon. The whole mass of them was moving west, then switched to east. They moved north towards the beach for a while then didn’t abrupt to change and headed offshore to the south. Who’s In charge of this pod?
Perhaps 40 minutes later The previously mentioned mother and calf pair made a close approach to the Condor Express. Everyone had great looks. We continued watching most of the whales circle around and often times it was difficult to tell if we had seen earlier. We did our best.
Around 1:20 in the afternoon a giant breach in the distance was observed and ], given the wind situation, spray was flying everywhere. Eddy moved us a little closer and the same beast threw its mighty tail not too far from the boat. (See today’s photo of this event).
During one of our sightings of the dolphins, a very small, dinner plate-sized Ocean sunfish (Mola mola) swam quickly down the side of the Condor Express in front of everybody. They are very agile!
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
