Image: a pair of Dall’s porpoise zoom past the Condor Express.
2024 12–20 SB Channel
With glassy seas all day, the Condor Express headed west up the coast until they passed the UCSB campus. At that point we turned south across The Channel ended up very close to the West End of beautiful Santa Cruz Island. Skies were covered by a high marine layer. Sightings for the day included: 15 Dall’s porpoise, 300 California sea lions and 5 humpback whales. In addition, the crew stopped three times to retrieve floating, disintegrating, Mylar balloons from the ocean surface. One of those stops included picking up a large clump of eight or more. Sadly, many more balloons were seen in the distance. Happy holidays everyone.
Along our southerly course heading towards The Island, there were multiple small birdnados, and many mobs of California sea lions, mostly 30 to 40 each. In the mid-Channel area, we slowed down to watch a group of 10 high-speed Dall’s porpoise. They made a couple of quick passes near the boat which everyone enjoyed seeing.
After we crossed The Lanes and were very close to beautiful Santa Cruz Island, we saw a numerous spouts ahead. This turned out to be 5 humpback whales. The group included 4 large adults and 1 smaller whale. All were quite frisky, perhaps engaging in courtship behavior. There was a lot of rolling around and trumpet vocalizing. A few random passes by the boat also took place. Fantastic sightings!
On the way home we encountered 5 more Dall’s porpoise.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
Commentaires