I made a quick trip to SoCal for the deepwater pelagic out of Santa Barbara, on the Condor Express. Chris Sloan has already posted his great photos from the trip, it was nice to finally spend some time at sea with Chris.

Conditions were terrible for humans, great for Pterodroma Petrels, what we went for. We had a great trip, with the highlights being 63 Cook's Petrels, at least one Murphy's Petrel, several Black-footed and two Laysan Albatrosses, and a number of other near and off-shore species.

There was a very experienced cadre of pelagic birders on board for this trip, and it took a lot of eyes to find the birds in the big seas we experienced; 20 foot waves at times and 30+ knot winds. The Condor Express handled all of this like a dream, but there were quite a few very seasick people on board; definitely not as much for everybody!

I got 7 lifers or ABA birds on this all-day trip:

Laysan Albatross (ABA)
Black-footed Albatross
Cook's Petrel
Murphy's Petrel
Ashy Storm-Petrel
Common Murre
Xantus's Murrelet