Overcast skies and glassy flat seas allowed us to find a huge feeding group of whales today. Our adventure went like this...
A few miles outside the harbor baitballs started to appear. 50 Common dolphins as well as cormorants, pelicans, gulls, and sea lions were feeding in this zone. Although it was an overcast day, we were still able to look down and see giant schools of anchovies under our boat.
Heading offshore 2 breaching whales caught our attention. These two were soon joined by a third. Wonderful tail flukes were seen by all. We also had another couple of pairs in the area, one of which consisted of an old friend known as "Black Rakes." Born in 2014 to the famous SoCal whales "Chompers," Black Rakes is a regular in the channel. We see him pretty much every year as he is very distinguishable with a very white tail with deep killer whale rake marks on both sides of his fluke. After spending time with so many whales (easily 20 in the middle of the channel), and a brief encounter with a blue shark, we sped for Painted Cave on Santa Cruz island. Along the way more spouts and whales were everywhere we looked. We stopped on another trio a few miles in front of Santa Cruz island before enjoying a picturesque look at the world's third-longest sea cave.
We sped home watching whales in the distance as another beautiful day in the channel came to an end.
Until Next Time,
The SBWW Crew
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