[CINC] Condor 8/17

[in]

12 Blues
6 Humps
50ish Commons
a few Mola Molas

Heading west towards Santa Rosa, Capt. Matt gently floated about a hundred guests through moderate swells and chop to the "zone". On the way a small pod of long beaked commons, 50ish, put in a brief appearance. Thanks to Bernardo Alps' photos and presentation last Wednesday, I am confident that they were in fact long beaked!!

The blues appeared first, several, and we followed them for awhile. More spouts and humpback flukes in the distance and all around made it clear that this was the place to be!  On three occasions I counted six spouts at the same time... whale chowder!Later, 4 humpbacks, were approached and they cooperated admirably by displaying their flukes for PID Marilyn, who must have had quite a time keeping up with all the Blues! Almost mid channel, after visiting the Cave, the last 2 humpies were spotted and produced 2 more fluke shots.

The usual international crowd... Holland, Wales, England, Germany, France and domestic passengers too from American exotica such as New Jersey, Kansas, Colorado and Washington DC. One gentleman sported a t-shirt with John Belushi's classic line, " We're getting the band back together!"  from the movie "The Blues Brothers".  Well, there were more than enough Blues to make up a band! Today, the classic line would have been, "We're getting the pod back together again!" More blues than I have seen in a day!


Capt. Mat, Matt, and Brooke in the galley; Check out Bob Perry's photos on the web site! Marilyn on PID and Pat and yours truly mingling with a very delightful crowd as naturalists.

Gary Delanoeye



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.rain.org/pipermail/channel_islands_naturalist_corps/attachments/20120817/0ce4c67e/attachment-0001.html>