Condor Express Whale Watching

Gray whales are currently embarking on their southbound migration down from the cold nutrient waters of Alaska! Here in Santa Barbara, they tend to stick offshore during the southbound migration, either hugging the channel islands or moving mid channel. However, in just a few months, they’ll pull a u-turn and head back up the coast, from their warm water breeding lagoons in Baja California, Mexico! The northbound migration is SO amazing here in Santa B. They hug the coast as ...they head north, and are often seen right in front of our harbor! Northbound animals are also known to get a little frisky like this trio that decided to stop by and take a look at our boat. We can’t wait to bring you closer to these beautiful whales when we return from the boatyard. We aim to return in early March. Who’s gonna join us? Video and shrieks of joy by Adam Ernster Photography #pacificocean #wildlifephotography #wildlife #art #nature #naturephotography #earth #travel #artofvisuals #travelphotography #cetacean #cetacean #cetaceanphotography #condorexpresssb #santabarbara #seesb #whale #whalewatching #graywhale #eschrichtiusrobustus

Even though our crew has been stuck at the docks, working around the clock to re-power our mighty 71 foot catamaran, we are so fortunate to be getting reports from friends and colleagues who are still out on the water. We are ecstatic to hear of great diversity in the channel! Everything from multiple killer whale and humpback sightings, to yes even a couple of BLUE WHALES , our incredible sightings in 2020 seem to be continuing into 2021. While things on land may seem to... have come to a crawl for most of us, life out there is still flourishing Video by Adam Ernster Photography #santabarbara #santabarbarachannel #seesb #whale #cetacean #wildlifephotography #wildlife #artofvisuals #travel #earth #changingphotography #whalewatching #whalewatch #whale #condorexpress #condorexpresssb #earthcapture #nature #commondolphins #bluewhale #balaenopteramusculus #drone #dronenature #dji #djiphantom4pro #phantom4pro #nature

Happy New Years to you and yours! We are excited to see what 2021 will have in store for us and our beautiful marine backyard we’re lucky enough to explore. We wanted to share some of our favorite encounters with humpback whales we had in 2020. These playful giants are regulars in the channel during the spring to winter months. We sure hope to see more of them in 2021! Progress is coming along on our yearly maintenance haul out. We are currently working on wiring the boat, ...as our new engines will be installed this week! We are ready to continue moving forward with the repower of the Condor Express, and are excited to meet emissions standards well into the next decade! Happy New Year, we wish you all the best in 2021! The Condor Crew

As we inch closer and closer to our return to daily whale watching, we wanted to bring you some of our fondest memories! We are scheduled to return during our 2.5 hour coastal season, and are excited to see what kind of life we can find near the coast! Spring is an excellent time of year for northbound gray whales, multiple different dolphin species, and even the return of our ever charismatic humpbacks! Enjoy as this gentle giant investigates our boat, and even gives us a magical rainblow! Video by Captain Dave Beezer #santabarbara #santabarbarachannel #seesb #humpbackwhale #humpbackbreach #whale #cetacean #megapteranovaeangliae #wildlifephotography #wildlife #artofvisuals #travel #earth #changingphotography #whalewatching #whalewatch #whale #condorexpress #condorexpresssb #earthcapture #nature

Happy holidays from our ocean family to yours! This year has been a tough year for all, and we hope you and your families are happy and healthy this holiday season. We are beyond grateful to have been able to run trips from the summer on and see some incredible things! Our wildlife cinematographer Adam Ernster Photography put together this short highlight video of some of our favorite encounters! We just want to say thank you from the bottom of our ocean loving hearts for com...ing along for the journey. Whether you supported us in person by taking on of our tours, or virtually by sharing our love for the ocean, we sincerely thank you! Progress is coming along nicely as we continue through our biannual maintenance haul out. We will soon be putting in 4 brand new engines, that will make us more efficient, pollute less, and will allow us to meet emission standards well into the next decade! Thank you again for watching and we hope to see you soon! #santabarbara #santabarbarachannel #seesb #humpbackwhale #humpbackbreach #whale #cetacean #megapteranovaeangliae #wildlifephotography #wildlife #artofvisuals #travel #earth #changingphotography #whalewatching #whalewatch #whale #condorexpress #condorexpresssb #earthcapture #nature #commondolphins #bluewhale #balaenopteramusculus #captbeezer #condorcrew #bottlenosedolphins

What an end to our season! Our summer season started with blue whales in the beginning of June, and ended with them today as November comes to a close. We sincerely want to thank you for joining us along on our whale filled journey this year. Without your support, we wouldn’t have been able to show over 4,000 people the beauty of the Santa Barbara Channel. 2020 has been a challenging year, but we are proud to have faced it head on in a thoughtful and responsible manner! We wi...ll keep everyone updated on our repower as we head into the yard. We look forward to seeing you in February for gray whale season! Best - The Condor Crew #santabarbara #santabarbarachannel #seesb #humpbackwhale #humpbackbreach #whale #cetacean #megapteranovaeangliae #wildlifephotography #wildlife #artofvisuals #travel #earth #changingphotography #whalewatching #whalewatch #whale #condorexpress #condorexpresssb #earthcapture #nature #commondolphins #bluewhale #balaenopteramusculus #captbeezer

Check out the latest post from our Captain's Blog.

Photos from todays tour! Sightings include : - 8 humpback whales (with more in the area) - 1,500 common dolphins (long beaks) - Hundreds of happy sea lions!... We will continue to be running our 4.5 hour trips til the end of November. In December-January we will be shut down for boat maintenance and a repower of the entire boat! If you can’t make it this November for a trip, we hope to see you in February of 2021, as we begin our coastal gray whale season! Best - The Condor Crew

Humpback whale galore out in the Santa Barbara channel today! With breaching, tail lobbing, and pec slapping seen throughout the day, we couldn’t be happier to spend time with 15 of these giants today! Our favorite part? Watching this group of 3 interact and get frisky Competitive behavior is usually seen in places like Baja California, or Maui, Hawaii. However as we move into the later fall months, we begin seeing hints of it here too! We can’t wait to see what else we f...ind in our gorgeous backyard Captain : @captainbeezer Crew : @auzz91 @kellyyyisrad @adam_ernster #santabarbara #santabarbarachannel #seesb #humpbackwhale #humpbackbreach #whale #cetacean #megapteranovaeangliae #wildlifephotography #wildlife #artofvisuals #travel #earth #changingphotography #whalewatching #whalewatch #whale #condorexpress #condorexpresssb #earthcapture #nature See more

Tons of great whale action today with 11 humpback whales and thousands of common dolphins! Beautiful sea conditions throughout the weekend will allow us to search far and wide for all sorts of wildlife. You never know what you’ll see on one of our trips. Passengers today enjoyed breaching, socializing, and chin slapping for our humpback whales There’s still a few spots left on this weekends trips if you’d like to join! Photos by Adam Ernster Photography... #santabarbara #santabarbarachannel #seesb #humpbackwhale #humpbackbreach #whale #cetacean #megapteranovaeangliae #wildlifephotography #wildlife #artofvisuals #travel #earth #changingphotography #whalewatching #whalewatch #whale #condorexpress #condorexpresssb #earthcapture #nature #captbeezer

Pearl the humpback, as well as 9 others joined us in the channel for some beautiful whale watching! We participate in a photo ID program and you can too! If you get any photos of a whale tail, you can upload it to a data base called Happy Whale. Happy whale will do it’s best to identify your whale and give you a little history on your new blubbery friend! You can read up on Pearl’s profile down below! https://happywhale.com/individual/7015... Photos by Adam Ernster Photography #santabarbara #santabarbarachannel #seesb #humpbackwhale #humpbackbreach #whale #cetacean #megapteranovaeangliae #wildlifephotography #wildlife #artofvisuals #travel #earth #changingphotography #whalewatching #whalewatch #whale #condorexpress #condorexpresssb #earthcapture #nature #captbeezer