2020 10-18 SB Channel
A glassy morning picked up a light breeze as the day progressed. Seas were calm and skies were partly sunny. Sightings were phenomenal once again with 9 humpback whales, 300 long-beaked common dolphins and 1 pigeon closely watched.
As the numbers above would suggest, dolphins were abundant throughout the excursion starting out to the southeast near Platform Habitat. There were periods of active surface feeding and lots of nice inter-species interactions with some of the humpback whales.
The whale story began about 3 miles past Habitat where we watched a very active young humpback. It did numerous tail throws and followed them up with a full body massive breach.
More about the whales will follow. To keep things sort of chronological, at this point in the trip a lone pigeon, lost at sea, sought refuge on the flying bridge of the Condor Express and stayed with us until we were approaching the harbor coming home.
Continuing the whale story, southwest of the breaching juvenile we watched 3 individuals that came together briefly. One of them was located due to the fact that it, too, was aerially active. The beast breached 4 times as we located it and approached from a distance, took a rest, then finished by breaching another 4 times relatively close to the Condor.
As the breeze began to freshen, we watched another two humpback whales a bit west of the last batch. We were still north of The Lanes, for reference purposes. Finally, on the way home the remaining whales were encountered and included a mother with her calf.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry Condor Express, and CondorExpressPhotos.com
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