Our most KILLER day yet!

WOW! Today was one for the ages. Thanks to our friend Tim Simes for alerting us of orcas nearby, we spent an action-packed 4 hours with 2 different families of killer whales. Here's how this unbelievable day unfolded.

Before our public trip, Captain Adam took the boat out to ensure success once our public trip left the dock. Within 10 minutes, he spotted the whales as they made quick work of a common dolphin. One of the whales did a beautiful spyhop with the coast of Santa Barbara caressing the background of the scene.

Killer whale spy-hopping with Santa Barbara in the background.

Returning to the dock to turn and burn with passengers, we were on the whales again within 6 minutes of leaving the harbor mouth. The whales must've killed a sea lion in the short interval where they didn't have coverage. Remains would be seen throughout the day. 6 whales in total from two different matrilines were present. Each family has whales of similar ages: two matriarchs, two juveniles, and two very young calves. The outlier, however, is "Frosty." Frosty is a 5.5-year-old leucistic killer whale. Thought to have an auto-immune disease called the "Chediak-Higashi" syndrome, which causes his skin to be a slate gray. Other killer whales known to have this disease, unfortunately succumbed to their ailments at ~4 years old. While Frosty has had some scares in recent years, it appears to be in good health and activity! Along with his other family members and friends, Frosty was very active today.

The whales were all extremely active. They were constantly breaching, tail-throwing, tail-slapping, and spy-hopping. We must've witnessed 200 breaches from the group during our 4 hours with them. They were the most active and curious whales we've ever seen in the channel.

Two of the younger whales were easily the most active of the group. They chased each other around for hours on end. They also were passing a piece of sea lion blubber back and forth to each other. Reluctant to eat the chewy piece of flesh, we saw them breach with the piece in their mouth, as if to say "HAHA I've got it now!" The ocean's apex predators' version of "tag."

Killer whale breaching with a piece of flesh in its mouth.

Other notable behaviors included playing with a lobster trap! These whales stopped at one of the local traps and took quite an interest in it. We watched as the trap bobbed up and down while the whales tugged on it. They would also come up and breach right next to it, only to return to the depths to begin tugging. The significance of such behavior is unknown, although it is speculated that this could be some sort of stimulation or play for the whales.

The most exciting and thought-provoking activity of the day was their interest in us. We'll let the footage speak for itself.

Some of today's highlights.

Until Next Time,

The SBWW Crew