ACS National's summer adventure...

-- Sightings Summary --   Critters seen that day:      50 humpback whales      2 minke whales (each sighted only once)      5-8 Risso's dolphins  More

The following is a reprint of an article as it appeared in a past issue of Whalewatcher.

The official name of the ACS trip on 19 May is "Summer Adventure - 2001" but it has been informally referred to as "the humpback trip," and it will certainly be forever remembered as such.

We did see humpbacks, about 50 of them. We saw humpbacks, we heard humpbacks, we smelled humpbacks, and we felt the mist of their blows on our skin. We saw big humpbacks, medium humpbacks and small humpbacks. We saw about every behavior that humpbacks exhibit. We saw breaching, spyhopping, lunge feeding at every conceivable angle, flipper slapping, lobtailing, fluke thrashing and bubble blowing, we even saw a humpback defecate.

It was on a nice overcast day with calm seas that the "Condor" left Santa Barbara in search of the whales that had been reported off the west end of Santa Cruz Island in the previous days. On the way across the channel we had a few brief glimpses of elusive minke whales and spent some time with a small pod of Risso's dolphins.

And then, right where expected, we found the humpbacks. They were part of a gigantic feeding frenzy that also included Pacific white-sided dolphins, California sea lions and birds. The feeding was spread out over a relatively small area, and was broken up into spots with very high concentrations of animals.

Clouds of pelicans would drop from the air, rafts of Brandt's cormorants sat on the surface catching their breath before going for another dive, countless sooty shear-waters whirled around before dipping below the surface and western gulls circled waiting for an injured fish to come to the surface or for an opportunity to steal a morsel from another bird. Sea lions were so thick that some aboard wondered if it would be possible to walk across their backs. A younger whale watcher expressed the desire to "mosh" on the sea lions. Every so often a group of young sea lions would take off porpoising along the surface to join a different feeding group.

A small pod of dolphins arrived and divided their time between feeding and "bow riding" the surfacing whales. There was one pair of whales, a large one with very distinctive curled flukes and a smaller one that appeared to be a large calf, nicknamed Raggedy Ann and Andy, that followed the "Condor" from one feeding aggregation to the next. They were always circling the boat and seemed to demand the attention of all aboard. Andy breached countless times, often only a few feet from the "Condor" and its delighted passengers. He seemed annoyed with dolphins and sea lions that came too close and at times thrashed at them with his flukes.

Most of the other whales were totally preoccupied with feeding. They would often break the surface with their jaws agape. Sometimes they would pop vertically out of the water exposing more than a third of their body length, sometimes they would lunge at different angles and sometimes along the surface or just below it. On occasion they would make thousands of silvery little fish jump into the air in attempts to escape the giant baleen-fringed mouths.

We spent four solid hours that seemed like mere minutes with the animals. It was hard to decide in which direction to look since things were happening all around. Shouts like "Andy is breaching again!", "Lunge in front of the boat!", and "Does anybody have some extra film?" were heard the whole time.

We finally had to leave. On the way back we stopped by an area off the UCSB campus to look at a sea otter that was dining on a crab while being harassed by a western gull.

The Santa Barbara Channel and its inhabitants provide many, many unforgettable trips, but this one will always rank as one of the most amazing. A true Summer Adventure, and hopefully an omen for what the rest of the season has in store.

The above is a reprint of an article as it appeared in a past issue of Whalewatcher. The photos and layout have been changed however.