Nature

Track recent ‘Marine Mammal Sightings' via this whale-y cool grid

Island Packers, the Santa Barbara Channel-roaming boat company, is spotting cetaceans aplenty.

Island Packers

IT'S NO FLUKE... that whale mavens like to know which giants are passing along the coast on their ancient migratory journey. Gray, Blue, Minke, Fin: All of these epic ocean giants do captivate we landlubbers, even if we're not on a boat in a place where whales are known to occasionally appear. This is one reason that a grid or list on a boat company's site, a page that features recent sightings, can be so delightful; it gives us a watery window into the wonderful world of whales. Island Packers, a longtime concessionaire serving Channel Islands National Park, shares its whale and dolphin sightings via a regularly updated grid, which can be an especially robust resource during the height of the Pacific Gray season (so think December to April).

WINTER 2025... several "Gray Days" — some 64 Gray Whales were seen around the Santa Barbara Channel in January 2025 — and 13 Humpback Whales. Orcas, too, made the list, and thousands of Common Dolphins. It's also interesting to look back at the 2024 totals, which are listed on this page, and consider the colossal critters that "visit" our waters at different points of the calendar. We're swimming into the thick of whale festival season, by the by, with cetacean celebrations ready to surface in Dana Point, Pismo Beach, and Mendocino County in the weeks ahead.

SEA FOR YOURSELF: If you'd like to book an excursion with Island Packers, and maybe-hopefully spy a whale (though, of course, that is not always guaranteed), you can do so on this site. The family-run company will mark its 60th anniversary in a few years, so it is no fluke that whales, dolphins, and the other critters of the ocean are well-known and loved by the Island Packers team.

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