2020 09-22 SB Channel East
Captain Dave and his crew encountered a bit of fog near the harbor this morning. It began to lift almost right away creating a gray stratus layer. By the time we were 8 – 10 miles offshore the bright blue sky and sun took over. Seas were calm all day. Sightings included: 5+ humpback whales, 4+ giant blue whales, 1 Minke whale and 3000 long-beaked common dolphins.
The dolphins located the Condor Express about 5 miles offshore. At first there were small surface-feeding pods. A Minke whale was also in the area, perhaps chasing the same anchovy schools. The number of pods and their size increased quite a bit as we approached The Lanes. Sea birds were active all around the dolphins…at times it was pandemonium.
The humpback whales and blue whales were feeding sub-surface about a mile from each other. In the northbound shipping lanes, the humpbacks started to appear among the thousands of feeding dolphins. We closely watched 5 individual humpback whales, but more were seen around the zone. The giant blue whales began to pop up in the nearby southbound lanes. Most of them had long dive times and good surface times. Several nice tail flukes were seen. The last blue whale we watched was a smaller, sub-adult and swam in extremely tight circles on the surface…its “up” times were longer than the big whales.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry Condor Express, and CondorExpressPhotos.com
SPECIAL TRIP NOTICE We still have spots left on our up-coming 8-hour whale watch! Sign up now before our reduced passenger load sells out. Whales of many species, several kinds of dolphins, sharks Mola mola, pelagic birds, gelatinous animals…who knows what Mother Nature has in store? I am reminded that transient (Biggs) killer whales were in the Channel quite recently.
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