[CINC] Condor Express Sunday June 26, 2011

[Kevin Bailey]

We left sunny non-windy Santa Barbara and headed out into the choppy windy
channel. Capt. Dave pre-warned everyone that the perfect weather here at the
dock was not indicative of what was to come about 5-8 miles out. Everyone
boarded and just a handful had any issues for Matt and Dennis to deal with.

 

The official Blue Whale count for the day is 5 with 3 in the immediate area
that I got good PID shots of and another 2 others out of camera range. There
were other spouts in distance (probably both species) but we had quite the
show with the 3 Blues. They were surfacing feeding, rolling and what at
times seemed to be a little racing behavior. At times they were swimming
very fast, rolling around, splashing, and showing ½ a tail or the side
flipper and lunge feeding. Krill could be seen at the surface in many
patches.

 

There was the usual group of sea lions at the buoy with a waiting list to
board. While waiting for a space to open up on the buoy they were
thermoregulating. Lots more were seen on SCI high up on the rocks, swimming
around and on the small rocky beaches. We also saw a small group of Harbor
Seals hauled out on SCI too.

 

We saw about 400 Commons with about 6-8 Pacific White-sided mixed into the
group of which maybe 25% of the dolphins were little ones and of course more
sea lions playing in the mix.

 

As for the birds, lots of sooty shearwaters fat and filling up on krill and
many pigeon guillemots flying around the island. Besides these birds there
were a few gulls, cormorants and pelicans - definitely a whale day not a
bird day.  

 

Kevin Bailey 

 

Tina Armbruster

Geoff Grow

 

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