My wife was complaining a few weeks ago that with all of the trips we make out the Channel Islands, we almost never see whales. We decided to go on a whale watching trip. I just got a new 5D, and don't yet have a housing for it, so I was itching for a good opportunity to try it out. We took the Condor Express on Jan 23 to the gap between Anacapa and Santa Cruz. It certainly was a different crowd than one gets on a dive boat. Also the boat was fast. We were out to the islands in under an hour!
As seems to be our fate, we didn't see anything for the first 2 1/2 hours, and were beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea. But it was a beautiful day to be out on the water. The sun was shining and the water was flat. It was a shame to be on top of the water, rather than under it.
Then things heated up. First we ran acoss a school of about 30-40 Risso's dolphins. Then we came across a huge school of common dolphins. There must have been 600-700 churning up the water all around the boat, but still no whales. Just as we thought we were going to get skunked, the captain found a pod of 4 grey whales. We spent about 15 minutes with them, when the captain announced that we were leaving! I was a little disappointed that we got so little time with them, but he explained that the reason we were leaving was that he had gotten a radio message that a pod of 5 Orca had been spotted close by. Sure enough, in a couple of minutes we were alongside them. According to the crew, they only see Orca about once a year. What a rare treat! The Orca, were near a school of dolphins that you can see in the background. I wonder if the Orca were hunting them, or they were both hunting the same school of fish.
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