[CINC] Great Father's Day Santa Rosa Island trip

[Catherine French]

It was a great crossing to drop off visitors to Scorpion Anchorage then sail around the south side of Santa Cruz. The gap between SCI and SRI was unusually sedate, so we arrived at Becher's Bay earlier than normal just as the bright sunshine pushed off the June marine layer.

Capt  Lee drove with able crew Paige, Matt and Scot to make the trip wonderful and safe. Lee's daughter Rachel,  visiting for Daddy's Day and I (sans uniform) hiked the Torrey Pines Loop trail, stopped to admire Black Rock on the way back to the pier as well as beach-combed Water Canyon Beach. 

While in the pines, we had a close encounter with an Osprey, it was so beautiful as it took flight right in front of us! At Black Rick we saw oyster catchers, pigeon guillemots, western gulls and nearby we saw a red tail hawk.

Lee wowed the passengers by taking us in Painted Cave (always a special treat on this trip) and just as we exited the cave and rounded Profile Point, a large group of Risso's appeared in front of us. We got some great views of these squid lovers.

As we neared the rig line, word from the Island Explorer and Channel Islands Helo tours, alerted us to humpbacks in the area. We watched two humpbacks and hundreds of common dolphin enjoy a feeding frenzy complete with diving Sooty shearwaters, cormorants, western gulls and brown pelicans in he mix. Lots of pigeon Guillemots in the Channel, too.

Don Gillies was on board to lead day visitors on the Cherry Canyon trail, and Kathy deWt-Oleson and Kat Wasden went home with us after working the weekend on island.

Total cetacean sightings:
250 DC in AM
50 Risso's on return trip
2 humpbacks
500 DC with 100 babies in the mix
Another quick sighting of 100 more common dolphins north of the rig line 
And, blue whale-sized blows near platform Grace. Island Explorer did see two blue whales in the east channel.

Hope your Father's Day was as great as ours!

Calm Seas,
Catherine French
Writer, mentor, naturalist
805.570.0432
To have us to own, to share is to enjoy.

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