Blue Whales and Dolphin
The story and photos of my 8/14/04 Whale Watching trip out of Santa Barbara with lots of Dolphin and Blue Whales
This was a trip on Condor Cruises out of Santa Barbara for the American Cetacean Society.
Another fantastic trip! It was a full day trip leaving from Santa Barbara out into the channel. Within minutes of leaving the harbor (passing the Sealions on the buoy of course) we encountered some Common Dolphin. This was not a very big pod and I am told they were Long Beaked Common Dolphin which are far less abundant then the Short Beaked. To me they look the same! They came over for some Bow Riding and we played with them for a little while then continued on. They were pretty spread out so we passed more while heading away. Actually we ran into Common Dolphin throughout the trip.
Long Beaked Common Dolphin
About an hour out we spotted our first Blue Whale. We watched this one for a while but it was traveling and wasn't very showy so we continued on to see if we could find another. Shortly there after we did.... then another.... then another. We didn't stay on these Whales as they were also not very showy and off in the distance we could see the splashing of what the Captain has observed before and calls "racing". They aren't really racing I am sure but it was three Blue Whales traveling at very high speed. They were coming way up out of the water which was quite choppy and added to the splashing affect. It was visible for quite a distance and it took us some time to catch up. By the time we did the Whales had split and two were still together. We opted to follow the pair but did get a few glances at the one that broke off on it's own. The two Blue Whales were quite fun to watch but hard to keep up with. We had to travel into the wind and they were going fast. When they did come up we could see their heads as they broke the water and plenty of back. We followed them for quite some time before turning off to find more Blue Whales. It wasn't hard to do since every where we looked off in the distance we were seeing nice tall blows. It was a nice sunny and fairly clear day.... but still freezing while heading in to the wind!
Somehow these pics were developed with a bit of a pink hue and if I try to fix that they get real grainy
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