Outstanding sea conditions for whale watching AGAIN!! These wonderful Fall whale watching conditions just keep on rolling along. Hardly a breath of wind, glassy surface, blue water and blue skies with warm sun. Right out of the harbor we encountered about 8 inshore bottlenose dolphins and ran with them through the East Beach anchorage. One of the large bottlenose was …
Calm seas and a nice humpback whale
Calm seas and a nice humpback whale. Once again we took advantage of the extremely nice sea conditions along the mainland coast to find humpback whales and Minke whales. As is has been for a few weeks now, the day featured overcast skies and a sea surface that remained mill pond glassy smooth until we were well on our way …
The Team Gets a Treat – Humpback Whales Run Amok
The Condor Express flybridge team was not too far away from Santa Barbara Harbor, with overcast skies and glassy seas, when a monster splash was spotted a mile or so east of the boat. Captain Dave ran for it and hit the jackpot. In the midst of countless hot spots full of shearwaters and common dolphins, we found that same …
Minke Whales Baleen on the Flats
Baleen on the Flats Whoa! Did Captain Dave do it again! We left the harbor and ran southeast towards Platform Hillhouse where we encountered several friendly pods of long beaked common dolphins and their sooty shearwater aerial accompanists. The sky had a thin overcast, and the ocean surface wall mill pond glass. Before long the eagle eyes of Captain Dave …
Minke Whales and Hot Spots in the Santa Barbara Channel
Hot spot hopping in the Santa Barbara Channel. Winds and warnings were up for the west end of the Channel today which kind of dictated Captain Dave’s course. He wisely opted out of beating up the people in heavy seas for the possibility of finding yesterday’s whales up near San Miguel Island. Instead he went “hot spot hopping.” Now this …
More sun, more blue whales and humpback whales too.
It was mirror, mill pond glass on the Channel today and the sun came out after we ran south about an hour. We picked up several small pods of common dolphins as we passed through the north side and beyond the shipping lanes heading in the general direction of Santa Cruz Island. The sharp eyes of Captain Mat were aided …
We had a blast with humpback whales and dolphins today
Sunny. Clear skies. Very light winds. Smooth sea surface. All the oceanographic parameters were perfect today as Captain Mat took the Condor Express out of Santa Barbara Harbor and headed south to the spots we left the humpback whales yesterday. Again the abundance and diversity of marine mammals was spectacular. Here are the approximate totals for today: 2 Minke whales …
Day of the dolphins, humpback whales, and sea lions
Okay, so I said it was sunny yesterday…how fast things change, it seems. It’s getting hot inland and so that mean fog gremlin was with us much of the trip today. It was the kind of fog that was not too deep, you could see the sun if you looked straight up, but it was thick and low when looking …
Huge patch of activity including humpback whales
When humpback whales are very close, almost anyone can smell them. But it takes a seasoned veteran captain like Captain Dave to sniff-out cetaceans when they are 8 or 10 miles “out there.” After an initial contact with a humpback whale just outside Santa Barbara Harbor, Dave pushed offshore keeping the moderate chop on our bow quarter for a smoother …
Superior dolphins and abundant humpback whales
A humpback whale fluking up. Today we ran two trips, one typical whale watch but shifted to the morning 8a-1230p, and a private 2 hour charter in the afternoon. As a heads-up, tomorrow is the same schedule as today, 8a -1230p. And Saturday, we run a 1pm – 530pm afternoon adventure. Although windy conditions were forecast for the Channel, is …
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