This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 11:35 pm and is filed under About, Adventure Cruises, History, Information, Migration, Sites, Snorkeling, Snuba, Watching, Whales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
WOW! Who watches whom? This was a massive female with a male companion. The two of them circled our vessel for over 20 minutes the first time, and another 15 minutes the next. After their first visit we excitedly took pictures and ran all around the deck of our spacious vessel. The excited crew and captain enjoyed this encounter as much as the stunned passengers, many of which called this very personal visit the first of their lives. The top picture shows her lying on her side, slapping the water with a pectoral fin easily 15 feet long. Her very large brown eye looked up into the faces peering down as she cruised by beside the railing and popped up at various locations around the boat.
Between excited squeals of joy from the passengers and the delighted shouts from the crew and captain, I couldn’t help wondering if this animal might have been enjoying herself as well. So, you may be thinking, how did we know it was a ’she’? Much to our amazement, SHE rolled over and showed us! Right next to the boat! We were able to obtain a few pictures and we will show those in an upcoming post.
After she was done spending time with us, she slowly moved away, taking her male escort with her. We know it was a male because researchers are adamant that females have not been known to travel with another female. In the breeding grounds it would be counter-productive. Okay, that makes sense. However, males have been known to travel with another ‘buddy’. If she had not rolled over, we could only be guessing, but not this time.
After they moved away the first time, we went over a half mile west to watch a mother and her calf. They didn’t want to stick around and we honored that. We started our engines to move away when an explosive blow was heard off our stern. Several passengers began jumping up and down with uncontainable excitement. It was the same two from about a half hour before, much to our amazement and utter delight.
What an amazing and educational afternoon we had. On the way in, our informational handout table was swamped with visitors looking for more information, and we have plenty. Many researchers and scientists offer us their papers to share, along with brochures from NOAA and several local non-profits. Most of the return trip was in silence with a few excited whispers. My volunteers and I stood by, ready if there were any questions, but understanding the need by some to just ‘digest’ what had happened to us all that day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow brings!
