{"id":8954,"date":"2009-04-12T06:51:22","date_gmt":"2009-04-12T13:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=8954"},"modified":"2018-04-12T14:40:22","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T21:40:22","slug":"my-santa-barbara-fred-benko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=8954","title":{"rendered":"My Santa Barbara | Fred Benko"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By Leslie Dinaberg<\/a><\/p>\n

Fred Benko<\/a> has been making his home away from home in the \u201cfishy little sleeping village\u201d of the Santa Barbara Harbor, for 36 years, first as the founder of Sea Landing and as the owner of the Condor<\/a> and now the Condor Express boat charters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinter in the channel is a busy place, says Benko. One of his favorite things to do is take professional big wave surfers, along with their jet skis and camera crews, out to Cortez Bank (120 miles south of Santa Barbara) and Shark Park at San Miguel Island. \u201cThat\u2019s always exciting stuff. \u2026 It\u2019s awesome the talent these guys have,\u201d says Benko, noting that their pictures will frequently end up in surfing magazines. The Channel Islands also sees another kind of exciting action: both San Miguel Island and San Nicholas Island are large elephant seal rookeries. Benko laughs, \u201cI can\u2019t stop taking pictures of elephant seals because they have such unique faces. Each one is unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition there are, of course, lots of whales. \u201cThere are 25,000 whales in that herd this year and they\u2019ll all come through here. \u2026 It\u2019s just a freeway out there. \u2026<\/p>\n

Benko grins when asked if he still gets excited to see the first whales of the day. \u201cOh yeah, the whole crew. We\u2019re always enthusiastic and it\u2019s not a made up enthusiasm\u2014it\u2019s just really neat to see them. \u2026 The neat thing is we\u2019re out there every day so the whales become used to us. The Humpbacks will seek us out\u2014we call it getting mugged. \u2026 Frequently a blue whale will come up and surface right next to the boat, just within 50 feet or so right next to the boat. Scares the hell out of everybody. It\u2019s a huge blow, but it\u2019s always exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published in the Winter 2009\/10 issue of Santa Barbara Seasons Magazin<\/em>e<\/a>. Link to PDF here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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