Friends, Romans, countrymen, and countrywomen,<br><br>Chris Carlson here bringing you today's Condor Express report.<br><br>Just the facts ma'am:<br><br>-1 Sperm Whale<br>-700-1000 Common Dolphins<br><br>Captain Mat and crew welcomed about 35 people aboard on an overcast Monday morning. We had some from the Netherlands, Phoenix, the United Kingdom, Colorado, but most that I talked to were very local and had read about Sunday's awesome sightings. Well we sure didn't see the same volume of whales that Sunday brought, but we sure had a pretty neat sighting of our own.<br>
<br>Yep, about two or three miles off the coast of southern Anacapa, Capt. Mat spotted a spout he thought might be a blue, but as we approached it became apparent that it was not. An actual, factual sperm whale! I couldn't believe it myself. Obviously I had never seen one in real life until today. It was just coasting with its upper body out of the water, facing north towards Anacapa. But just a few minutes after we approached it, it did a spectacular deeper dive where its tail turned totally, ninety degree vertical and dropped right down beneath the calm ocean in 250 fathoms of water. We waited fifteen minutes but, not surprisingly, it never came back up. Those things can dive for well over an hour if they want to, but at least we got to see that awesome deeper dive close up. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to see that spectacular fluke and bragged to everybody just how rare a sighting they witnessed. Mat said that it was the first sperm whale he had seen aboard the current Condor Express ship, and that he had only seen a handful in his many year career. So yeah, that pretty much made my day right there.<br>
<br>We saw about four different bouts of common dolphins, one rather large one that people went nuts over. Those dolphins can jump! The customers still got some whale passes because of our brief encounter, but mannnnn, did they have a real treat today! And so did I.<br>
<br>Chris Carlson<br><a href="mailto:chrisjamescarlson@gmail.com">chrisjamescarlson@gmail.com</a><br>