Image: An underwater look at a friendly killer whale.
2024 09–27 SB Channel
Mirror glass ocean conditions all day created wonderful whale and dolphin sightings. Totals: 5000 common dolphins, 1 humpback whale (drive by), and 3 killer whales.
With advanced intel provided by our doc mates, the “Truth” and the “Vision”, Captain Dave and the crew put the pedal to the metal and headed to the Far Eastern Channel to find killer whales. With that in mind, and time being of the essence, we drove past small pods of dolphins starting just outside The Harbor. Later, after our killer whale encounter, we would see thousands more common dolphins on our way back home.
Captain Dave and the crew took the Condor Express past the Summerland oil rigs, past The Flats, and stopped when we were just west of platform Gail. There were three killer whales at this location. Judging by various pieces of materials still in the mouths of the whales, there had been a very recent kill. It is not uncommon, after a kill, for these whales to become friendly, animated, and social.
Such was the case today. In all, there was one very large adult male (CA 163 “Liner”), and two large adult females (One of them was CA180). The whales were very friendly and passed close to the boat Many times. There was quite a bit of lob tailing and some social interaction. (See today’s photograph for an example of a killer whale lab tailing). (Thanks to Alisa Schulman-Janiger, from the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and the California Killer Whale Project, https://www.californiakillerwhaleproject.org , for identifying our Orcas.
You never know what Mother Nature has in store.
Bob Perry
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