[CINC] Condor 6-3-11

[Victor Cox]

Howdy Corpspeople:
 
4 blues (including a probable cow-calf pair)
500+ common dolphin
3 bottlenose dolphins in the anchorage area
 
We saw the usual suspects (pinnipeds and sea birds) as well as the above
cetaceans on a slightly hazy, minimally windy Friday, June 3. Naturalists
Debra Herring and John Kuizenga (PID), with trainee Rose Messina joined
yours truly for a ride to Santa Cruz Island and subsequent whale watch with
two separate groups of people. First we landed around 20-25 Cleveland
Elementary School sixth grade students at Prisoners Harbor for the school¹s
annual camping trip. Capt. Dave and mate Dennis arranged a safe and
efficient disembarking, and we were off in search of whales.
A sharp-eyed lady from Florida spotted our first blue near the east end of
SC, and it probably had a calf with it. I saw what looked like a calf and
several passengers reported a ³baby whale,² but it was a brief sighting and
most did not see the pair. At that point the passenger list was mainly
participants (and their families) from a Santa Barbara conference of
independent petroleum producers. These folks came from various states
(California, Oklahoma, Texas, North Carolina) and from as far as Norway.
Other nationalities (not conferees) aboard were German and French.
 
One remarkable event from the trip was spotting a virtually circular ice
halo around the sun. This is an optical phenomenon produced in hazy skies
when sunlight refracted through hexagonal ice crystals produces a fuzzy
disk‹called a 22 degree halo‹with colored outer fringes of red and blue.
(Thanks, Wikipedia.) Dennis said he had seen this halo a number of other
times recently. 
 
Vic Cox
NC class of 2011