DAILY SIGHTINGS

Pacific white sided dolphins have become a rare sighting in Southern California over the past few years. These beautiful dolphins used to be a common sighting every winter and spring in the channel, but have been MIA the past few years. In fact, yesterday was Captain Devin's first encounter with them in over 5 years! These dolphins have an expansive range, from the Aleutian Islands to the tip of Baja, so who’s to say what has caused their disappearance in recent years. Finger

We enjoyed a beautiful day in the channel with a light wind chop. Our first whales of the day consisted of a pair of large adults. The whales were very lethargic at the surface, logging for long periods of time. These whales most likely had a big feed the day prior. FOOD COMA! Our next humpback was another adult with scarring along its body. We managed to snag a picture of the whale with snow on the top of the Santa Ynez Mountains, a rare combo for Santa Barbara. Soon we got

A whole smorgasborg of cetacea were seen on today's trip; 4 cetacean species in totality! Captain Adam led us west towards the western end of Santa Cruz Island. Before reaching the painted cave, we spent time with our first cetacean species of the day. ~15 dall's porpoise sped across our bow. They weaved in and out between us and spent a good amount of time bow riding. Nearby a small juvenile humpback gave us a few nice looks. We visited the world-famous painted cave and had

Gray Whales and Bottlenose Dolphin

In a first for our company and in Captain Devin's experience in the Santa Barbara channel, we saw over 20 BLUE SHARKS on today’s trip! Old timers tell tales of seeing so many blue sharks in the channel that you could practically walk across them to the islands. In modern times, gill netting and long lining practices have taken a toll on the blue sharks populations; we rarely see them on our trips anymore. To see over 20 is impressive and speaks to the resilient nature of our

A stunning day in the Santa Barbara Channel led Captain Devin west towards the Santa Cruz/ Santa Rosa gap. Here we watched 3 gray whales, our first of the year! The gray whales are on their annual migration from the frigid seas of Alaska towards their warm water breeding lagoons off Baja California. Numbers from the past few years have been very low for the gray whales as they slowly recover from a UME (unusual mortality event). This year is already off to a better start than

Today's adventure was filled with a wealth of wildlife! We enjoyed watching 11 humpback whales, including two separate cow/ calf pairs....

Captain Devin had a wonderful day in the channel. Calm seas and lots of marine life greeted us. Over a dozen lunge-feeding humpbacks and...

A beautiful day in the channel let us explore the vast expanse of ocean blue. Things were quiet during the first half of the trip until...

3 Northbound Gray Whales and 400 common dolphins Until Next Time, The SBWW Crew

Nice weather greeted us for World Whale Day. While every day here is a day we celebrate the wonderful world of whales, today is...

Our morning started as fast as any. We found a beautiful group of ~15 coastal bottlenose dolphins out the gate. The seas were glassy and...

Today’s weather was perfect, nice sunny skies and calm glassy water, it was a stunning day in Santa Barbara paradise. We enjoyed a single...

It was an absolutely perfect day in the Santa Barbara Channel, complete with the SB GRAND SLAM! FOUR baleen whale species + common...

Two trips left the dock today, each were greeted with flat calm seas. The whales have spread out, but both trips still had great looks at...