Image: Beautiful gray whale tail flukes on a winter day in the Santa Barbara Channel.
2025 03–09 SB Channel
Captain Danny and the crew ran two trips today, one at 9 AM and the other at 12 noon. The morning trip had calm seas, no wind but patches of dense fog. By the afternoon most of the fog had moved out towards The Islands and there was a light breeze. Sightings for the day included: 102 Common dolphins, 6 Gray whales, 20 California sea lions. We also had one fleeting look at a lone Minke whale (that probably nobody saw but The Captain).
In the morning, between The Harbor and Platform Charlie, we watched a pair of common dolphins. I might point out, that seeing only 2 common dolphins is a relatively rare experience, as they usually travel in larger pods (as we witnessed on the afternoon trip). Moving West, a single Minke whale surfaced once and that was it. One and done. Not long after, we found a trio of very cooperative, northbound gray whales. We were between platforms C and Habitat moving in and out of the fog. The whales were in travel mode, and, thus, we had wonderful looks. There were many nice tail flutes (See today’s photograph for an example).
The afternoon adventure started when Captain Danny was en route to the same three gray whales we watched on the morning trip, with some help from our friend Captain Devin. On our way to the whales, we stopped to watch a pod of 100 common dolphins that were mixed in with 20 California sea lions. When we arrived, the whales were still slowly moving north following a regular travel pattern that included dive times that were three minutes or less. Wonderful!
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry