[CINC] CX on June 1

[Dick Bellman]

The bottom line from today's trip aboard the Condor Express:

   - one pod of very "frisky" common dolphins
   - two Humpbacks; a cow-calf pair
   - 6 Blue Whales with numerous surrounding spouts

Today's trip included roughly 45 passengers, with a large contingency of
British and Scandanavian (Finland, Sweeden, Denmark) along with residents of
Florida, Oklahoma, Colorado and a smattering of Californians.  Captains Matt
and Dave headed the CX east in hopes of avoiding the winds that were to be
building in the western portion of the channel.  Our initial sighting was
the pod of very frisky, aka very amorous common dolphins.  Outstanding looks
with a significant amount of mating behavior taking place. Our next sighting
was the cow-calf pair of Humpbacks.  Passengers were treated to numerous
looks.  However Sally Eagle on PID was not presented with many photo-ops of
tail flukes.  Moving further east towards the east end of Santa Cruz where
there have been sightings of Blues.  We did, indeed, encounter Blues at
about the same time the wind that was supposed to be in the west and not
pick up till late in the day moved east and picked up early.  Captains Matt
and Dave worked diligently to take us back into the weather to get looks at
the Blues of which there were more than the 6 that were documented.  We also
released a juvenile California Sea Lion that have been rescued from (true
story) the living room of a home approximately 1/2 mile from the beach.
Amazing.  The trip back was rugged to say the least.  With spray reaching
all uncovered portions of the boat there was no way those affected with the
mal de mer could deal with their malady at the rail. The last dose of over
the wheelhouse spray occurred as we reached the green harbor buoy!!!  Almost
the entire load was in the cabin and Brooke was busy meeting people needs.
In addition to Sally on PID, Laura Shelton was the other naturalist.

Dick
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.rain.org/pipermail/channel_islands_naturalist_corps/attachments/20110601/61ee05bf/attachment.html>