[CINC] IPCO Explorer, WW, Sunday, 23Jn'13

[Kenneth A. Tatro]

Hi folks,

8 Humpbacks
1000 Common Dolphin.

Cormorants
Pelicans
Sooty Shearwaters
Pigeon Gillemonts
Western Gulls
  one nesting on the cliff at Painted Cave entrance, with two Chicks in Gray.

Sea Lions galore
Harbor Seals on the beach on Santa Cruz Island.

An interesting day, to be sure. Not forty minuets into this all day trip, we encountered a cow calf pair of Humpbacks. Right away the juvenile, say about 1-1/2 years old, began to perform. Tail lob, Pec slap and then a full breach out of nowhere, and with several big gun cameras on board and shooting away, it was a fellow with a very small 2" x 3" camera that got the full breach shot.  Then the "little one" gave us another 3/4 breach off to its left side. A little later, not much later, it gave us another tail lob, ... and that was it!! Show is over, no more on the schedule for the day. 

And sure enough, we saw more Humpbacks, but all of these were on a mission to get from point A to point B, knocking down a steady 8 knots heading west. 

First it was the two with the performing yearling. After the show they were off to the parts unknown somewhere west of here, and in a hurry. Then we came on another pair, and it was the same, 8 knots steady as she goes, heading west. Later we picked up four more spread out in front of us, doing the same, 8 Knots, steady, heading west.

So not much in the fluke shows, one ore two her and there. They all were fast moving just under the surface and doing little if any diving. We spoke with Capt. Mat on the Condor, up channel, and he was seeing similar activity only the whales he was seeing, were heading east, ... toward us.

Our best guess, there is a Humpback conference going on and they are late getting there. Soon, they hung a right and were heading north, toward shore. We broke off at that point, wanting to head for the Islands. Beside that, we did not have an invite to the conference, so quite likely, we would not have been admitted anyway.

All this time we passed several feeding frenzies of birds and Dolphins, yet the Humpbacks were not a bit interested in any of them. they were on a mission, to, ... ????   and had to book it.

None of the feeding frenzies were that large, so the dolphin's count were scattered across all of them, with on exception, a train of about 500 buzzed right in front of us, port to starboard, on a mission like the Humpbacks. Yet the birds were into the frenzies big time with pelicans diving again and again at each of the frenzies.

So, like we said, a different and interesting day.

We headed to Santa Cruz and pulled into Painted Came, yep the new IPCO boat goes in just fine.

We had some 66 folks from all over, Sacramento, CA; Phoenix, AZ, via Seattle (on vacation); Missouri("We don't have too many whales in Missouri"); Ventura(happy birthday Mike), among others.  One gentleman was on his third WW and saw his first whales today. Score that for Capt. Alex and crew. There were a few youngsters on board, two with their binoculars at the ready, they all had a good time of it.

Skipper Captain Alex did a great job of narrating, and finding whales, with Lurie and Capt Steve doing crew and galley work respectfully, or was it the other way around. 

Ken Tatro (going solo today, and it was just fine) 

As usual, a great day on the channel.