Most, but not all, of the whales were at the Island.

2021 05-24 SB Channel

Conditions were excellent in the Channel today with bright sun all day and a light breeze particularly at the island. Captain Colton and his crew closely watched 12+ humpback whales, and 500 California sea lions.

Although most of the action was out at Santa Cruz Island today, remarkably our first humpback whale of the trip was only 1 mile south of the harbor entrance. As with all of the humpback whale we watched, there were also hundreds of California sea lions and perhaps thousands of hungry pelagic birds working on the bait that was located subsurface.

After the unusual Harbor humpback sighting the Condor Express transited the Channel and ended up inside the world famous Painted Cave of Santa Cruz Island. Here Captain Colton gave a brief history of the geography and discussed the geology of the wonderful picturesque northern shore.

Starting a few miles west of The Cave, we ran into an enormous concentration of subsurface feeding humpback whales. We closely watched 11, but there were many more spouts in the area and even more to the west. Among the 11 that we watched there was a mother humpback with a calf.

You never know what Mother Nature has in store.

Bob Perry Condor Express, and CondorExpressPhotos.com