Beautiful conditions graced the channel today as skies were clear, waters were calm, and our passengers and crew were full of excitement!
We started our day by shooting across the channel, ending up in the eastern end of Santa Cruz Island. We first found 2 juvenile grays who were being a bit shy, so we decided to let them continue their southbound migration in peace. Running west along Santa Cruz Island, we found another group of gray whales, this time a group of 5. Upon arriving on scene we noticed some splashing and rolling around from the group. We then noticed bottlenose dolphin interacting with this group of grays! We put our drone up which revealed an incredible scene. Much like they do off the bow of our boat, the bottlenose would ride the rostrum of these 30 ton adult gray whales. All the commotion seemed to get the whales excited, as some mating behavior began to take place (we could confirm at least 1 male whale in the group!)
After this incredible encounter, we continued west and found more and more gray whales with bottlenose dolphin. First another trio, then a pair. We ended the day at painted cave before speeding across the channel towards home.
Until next time,
The SBWW crew
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