Greetings space cadets,<br><br>Naturalist Chris Carlson here to tell you about our journey on CX today. And of course, another long email to boot!<br><br>Sightings:<br>~700-1000 Common Dolphins<br>~50 Pacific White-sided Dolphins<br>
<br>Quite a lot of cloud cover this morning aboard the Condor. One 10-2:30 trip was planned by Captain Matt and the rest of the crew. There were an estimated 50 or so passengers with us. About half had never been whale watching before. We had just a handful of people from Santa Barbara, and more from elsewhere, like Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arkansas, North Dakota, Switzerland, Poland, and Norway! Well, okay, the Norway guy actually lives in SB now. Still. He was trying to convince me to go there sometimes too. That'd be pretty cool! He says the water is warmer than it is here! Amazing! And the Portuguese guy was telling me about islands you can go to off Portugal where you can see sperm whales all around you. Man, Europe gets to have ALL the fun! Well, I guess we have our share of marine stuff too... :-P<br>
<br>It was pretty cool out there until around 12:30 or so when the sun came up. We had about four separate encounters with Common Dolphins. The third encounter had about 500 or so in a pretty good sized megapod that people seemed to enjoy a good amount. The fourth encounter was my favorite though, because man do those dolphins like to jump! This one dolphin did the most amazing jump I've ever seen outside of SeaWorld and the Discovery Channel, jumping clear out of the water, turning his belly to us, and diving gracefully! He probably could've jumped over me, no problem! It was amazing, and I gave a very loud cheer that got me a few stares. It was worth it.<br>
Pacific White-sided Dolphins were also spotted, and those guys had some hops in them too. A few really enjoyed their color.<br><br>No larger cetaceans than that were spotted the whole day though. We traveled west along the coast, eventually hitting Point Conception with its lighthouse, with hopes that the whales had moved up the coast. We couldn't find any though. Some were particularly disappointed, particularly the Michigan girl who was heading back on Wednesday. I tried to cheer her and a few others up with my frequently used line "But dolphins are KINDS of whales!" referring to their dual cetacean lineage. That gives a slight smile from some. But it's true! Tell it to Carl Linnaeus (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Linnaeus">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Linnaeus</a>) if you're still disappointed!<br>
<br>A lot of the trip most of the passengers stayed put in the toasty cabin until the Capt told them to check out some Common Dolphins. But some enjoyed the bow with their cameras (there was one guy from Marine Bio Photography with us on the voyage, check them out at <a href="http://www.marinebiophotography.com">http://www.marinebiophotography.com</a> ). One kid stayed at the back of the boat most of the trip playing Pokemon on his Nintendo DS system. If you don't know, Pokemon is a game involving training fictional animals to travel with you. Come on kid, focus on the REAL animals! But, as a former player, I had a chat with him about some of the basics. Ah, memories... And I definitely have to mention this older lady on board, who made it very clear that she has two artificial knees and that it is difficult for her to walk. She was so sweet. She took a seat by all of the humpback setup stuff, and kept the humpback whale figure in her lap the entire trip. The. Entire. Trip. She wanted to protect it from falling off, and frequently reminded me that "my baby" was safe with her. She had such a good time too. <br>
<br>A good amount of disappointed faces left the boat, sadly, but a lot had wide smiles. Any day on the ocean is a good one, right? I think so at least. <br><br>Oh by the way, the Los Angeles Times posted an article in their travel section last Sunday (June 22) about the Channel Islands National Park. I brought the article with me and showed it to about a half-dozen passengers. It's really an expansive piece so definitely check it out: <a href="http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-channel22-2008jun22?gp=santa-barbara&parent=channel-islands-national-park&type=destinations">http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-channel22-2008jun22?gp=santa-barbara&parent=channel-islands-national-park&type=destinations</a><br>
The copy I brought got pretty beat up from the boat ride so I'm considering ordering it and laminating a copy. But if you've actually read this far into my email, TOTALLY check out that article!<br><br>Anyways, another day, another dolphin. Glad I'm along for all the rides.<br>
<br>Chris Carlson<br><a href="mailto:chrisjamescarlson@gmail.com">chrisjamescarlson@gmail.com</a><br>