Channel Islands Blue Whale watching, California

The Channel Islands are a designated US national park, and they are about an hour and a half boat ride from the Haneamia port in Oxnard California. There are a number of different tours offering whale watching and we went with Island Packers, the company that is posted on the National Park's website. It cost $63 per person for a total round-trip excursion of 8 hours. They sell snacks on board like pita pockets and drinks, including wine and beer, but we chose to bring our own sandwiches and beverages which made for a much healthier and satisfying meal.

The blue whale is the largest animal ever to inhabit the earth, bigger even then the brontasaurus and t-rex. And it is endangered, there are only 40,000 left in the world's oceans. The blue whale is also the animal that I believe is my totem or spirit animal as I've always felt drawn to it.

Fortunately for this Arizonan, they travel to the Channel Islands off the coast of California during the summer months of June - August to feed on krill in the Santa Barbara channel. The year I visited, 2009, was a rather remarkable year for sightings and I had looked forward to catching a glimpse of the gentle giants. Their was also a park volunteer on board who shared information about the whales and brought along some krill in a glass container and showed us whale baleen.

There were about 100 other passengers on board our boat, a catamaran with two levels. If you are at all sea-sick prone I'd recommend staying on dry land. This is a long boat ride and a couple of passengers who were sick slept the whole way. Not fun.

We boarded at 9:00 am and during the three hour trip to the far edge of the islands we passed pods of common dolphins and pairs of the larger Riso dolphins. We also passed several oil rigs which, after the devastation caused by the BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, have me very concerned for the future of this wonderful ocean habitat.

The weather was overcast and got colder the farther out we went so it's important to take layers of clothing. Whale watching is a lot like fishing and not for the impatient. It took a while to locate the spouts of the blues but when we did we were able to see the back of the blue whales as they reached the surface for air. Blue whales are shy creatures and they don't jump out of the water like the more acrobatic humpbacks which were also in abundance at this time of year. But just the fact that you could see a blue whale in its natural habitat is quite a rare event. The tour guides mentioned that only about 1,700 blues travel to the Channel Islands to feed so seeing even a spout is a treat that very few people ever get to experience in their lifetime. And we got to see about six while we were there. They were followed by inquisitive California sea lions which poked their heads above the waves to watch us as we passed by.

The humpbacks put on quite a show during our trip, flapping their fins against the water and a couple of males even jumped up out of the sea in what is called a breach. This brought forth thrilled ooh's and ahh's and applause from the group.

As we made our way back to port we passed along the edge of the Santa Cruz Island which I found similar to the Napali Coast of Kauai although much drier. We also went into the Painted Cave which is the largest sea cave in the world. The Islands had been inhabited at one time by ancient natives and later by an enterprising couple who had a bed and breakfast on the island in the 1920's during Prohibition where they maintained a liquor making still.

Today the Channel Islands are known as the Galapagos of North American because most of the animals and plants living on the island can be found nowhere else in the world.

Sun burnt and tired after our journey, we were all very impressed and awed by the beauty of the sea, the islands and the ocean wildlife and we felt very lucky to have seen what we did.