[CINC] Condor Express - Sunday June 1st

[Kevin Bailey]

Just the facts:




Where: Condor Express

When: Sunday June 1st, 2008 10am – 3:30pm

Condor Crew:  Capt. Mat, Dave, and Dennis

CINCers: Kevin & Toni Bailey with Barbara LaCorte on PID

Passenger count: 65

 

Humpback sightings = 26

Humpbacks recorded with coordinates = 15 (the others were seen off in the distance and not recorded with coordinates since they were ½ mile to 2 miles off in various directions)

Common Dolphins = 20

Dalls Porpoises = 4

Pacific White Sided Dolphins = 75

Sea Lions = here, there and everywhere 

CA Brown Pelicans = a lot, mostly near the harbor

Cormorants = quite a few from the harbor to SCI

Black-Crowned Night Heron = 1 seen on the bait station

Pigeon Guillemots = several seen while cruising alongside SCI

Sooty Shearwaters = many throughout the trip

Western Gulls = from harbor to nesting on SCI

Common Loon = 1 seen at entrance to Painted Cave

Accidents: 1 (now you have to read my story for the details)




Just the story:



Just outside the harbor we saw a huge full body breach about 3 miles straight out. It didn’t take long for the excitement to begin today. Less than ½ hour into our trip we came upon 20 Common Dolphins eating and frolicking. While looking at the dolphins 2 whales were seen ½ mile ahead so we continued onward. By 10:30 we were seeing spouts everywhere – we were surrounded. But wait before we talk whales we have to get the elusive darting glance at the 4 Dall’s Porpoises that appeared and disappeared just as quickly. Back to the whales, we had 2 Humpbacks less than 100 yards from us, then 2 more appeared, then more, for a total of 12 in our immediate area. We are still only a couple miles from shore. For the next hour we enjoyed the show while surrounded by humpbacks, the Pacific White Sided Dolphins, (who stayed to enjoy the feast the whole time), Sea Lions by the hundreds, everywhere you look, mixed together with Shearwaters, Cormorants and Gulls, and all this was within several hundred square yards. The whale on the front page of this morning's SB News Press, with the extensive tail damage, was in this feeding party frenzy. Barbara LaCorte got many great fluke photo ID shots. We saw bubbles, a mini spy-hop, heard trumpeting, saw lunge feeding, lots of flukes but no pecs because they were too busy gulping food to be showing off. The three breaches seen were all at great distances of 1-3 miles away. 

 

After an hour of this amazing show of densely packed biomass we decided to head toward the west end of SCI. Shortly after we headed toward the island, I noticed a passenger on the stairs at the front of the boat. I was on the top deck and signaled the OK sign and she shook her head no. I immediately got Dave’s and Dennis’ attention to assess the problem. Mat slowed the boat down while assessing the situation and it was determined that she was not going to be walking on her own. We quickly turned around and headed home. The passenger had twisted her knee and stayed put until we got back to Santa Barbara where EMT’s and other medical staff were waiting for our arrival. Dave asked me to go around and tell each passenger that we would resuming our trip back out to SCI once this medical emergency was dealt with. I told each passenger they could get off the boat if they wished or they could continue on. Once the EMT’s had removed the passenger, about ½ the other passengers decided to debark also. They had already got their monies worth of a great show and these folks were either a bit nauseous from the choppy seas or didn’t have any interest in seeing the island.

 

Our second trip (or second half of the trip) departed SB about 12:30pm and we headed back out toward SCI monitoring the seas. The reports we were getting was that the seas were getting progressively rougher farther out into the channel. It was choppy but the norm for the SB Channel. Once we reached SCI it was sunny (it was sunny all day) and beautiful and we cruised along toward Painted Cave seeing the usual sea birds and lots more sea lions who greeted us at the entrance to the cave. One passenger asked how many times I had been out here and don’t I get bored seeing the same thing all the time. I told him that he could go out everyday for 10 days and it would be different every day and that, no, I never get bored seeing a different show every day.

 

After leaving SCI we were running really late and the boat needed to be ready for a 4pm party cruise so we put the pedal to metal to get home as soon as possible. We passed by 2 more humpbacks cruising along the island, and once we turned to head home, 3 off to the left and 2 off to the right and more straight ahead. We didn’t have time to stop but there was whale watching all the way home too. We got back to home base at 3:30pm and everyone who stayed with us for the entire day had a great time.

 

Kevin Bailey
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