The year ended with some disappointment as our effort was inhibited by less than ideal conditions and we turned up two "skunks" in a row: no orcas seen on 12/22 as well as our subsequent effort on 1/1. It felt discouraging, but we kept up the faith that the Killer Whales were around here somewhere.
Starting Jan 2nd the weather really changed for the best. Glassy calm seas allowed us to locate orcas early in the day, around 1030am at the west end of Santa Cruz Island. This was a really nice prolonged encounter with the CA39As and a few males tagging long.
The following day was another near perfect weather day where a very rare pod of Orcas, the CA212s (mom and baby pictured below) along with the more common CA138s were found by us out west. 12 Killer Whales total!
Saturday the 4th we cancelled our trip because the weather was rough... but wouldn't you know it, that day two separate pods of Killer Whales were reported very close to our harbor, one of the pods was just 2 miles out!
Sunday the 5th we wanted to track down at least one of the pods sighted the day before. And we eventually did. They were west of Santa Barbara traveling southwest. It was the CA51As, a great pod that also includes a big male CA50B. They were boat friendly, and as the wind picked up they were moving through the waves with some expression!
January is a great month for weather and killer whale sightings. We are mostly sold out already on the SafeBoat "Jaeger", but the Zodiac "Tern" has also been added for weekend dates, Saturdays and Sundays.
Weather is the most important consideration and we aren't taking it for granted, and neither should you! If it's forecast to be beautiful, grab a seat and come on a Quest. It's likely that about half of our scheduled trips in January WILL NOT make it out due to weather, so if you put off that trip until "next weekend" there's a good chance it might not even happen.
Since the start of "Killer Whale Quest: Season Two" on August 28th, we've operated 23 trips with 18 Killer Whale encounters, giving us a 78% success rate.
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