Day 4 was completely different from the previous 3 days. I woke up with the odd feeling of not being excited to get in the water. Strange. We ate breakfast and headed out. For a change, we went to the east side of the islands to find a protected spot and to avoid other boats. We did not find any boats. However, we did not find many whales either...none that wanted to swim anyway. We followed a couple of whale spouts in the distance but the whales would dive and would stay below for 15 minutes or more. The entire morning was just as frustrating. Grrr.
Apparently none of the other boats had had any luck either.
Lunch was fun. We went to this beautiful beach at Port Mourelle on Kapa Island. On the way we oooogled at the massive boats moored off the beach. One of them (allegedly owned by the richest man in the world) was 5 or 6 stories tall and had a slide...yep a slide that went from the top story down into the water. It was crazy. It even had a part that extended out to anchor itself against the side of the boat. Another huge yacht was moored behind the massive one...it must have arrived first. I bet he thought that he was "all that" until the larger boat, that dwarfed his boat, pulled up. Then to add insult to injury... he started to inflate the slide. We passed another boat that had multiple "dinghies" of varying sizes...one of them almost the size of our boat. This was apparently THE place to park expensive boats.
The beach was another picture perfect place.
After lunch we went over to the west side of the islands. It was the same as it had been all morning...if not more frustrating. We drove around for an hour and saw very little. Sam (our whale guide) stood at alert.
He spotted a pectoral fin in the air. A humpback whale's pectoral fins can be up to 15 feet long...so it is noticeable when they raise their fin out of the water. It was still an amazing spot...seeing one pectoral fin in the ocean of blue. As we raced over, we hoped he would stay around. Luckily, he continued to splash and hold his fin or tail in the air as we approached. He decided to increase his aerobics routine.
The humpback began body lunging. This is when they propel the front half of their body out of the water...like a submarine surfacing. And with their big dark bodies and torpedo shape, they really do look like a sub surfacing. He lunged several times. It was impressive. But it did not stop there. A few minutes later, he breached. Breaching is when they thrust their whole body up and out of the water. I can not imagine how much power is required to thrust that much mass up and out of the water. AND then they sometimes twist which wraps their pectoral fins around their belly. Just impressive!
No one knows why they slap, breach or lunge. There are theories that range from trying to knock sea lice or barnacles off their bodies to curiosity to playfulness. Whatever the reason...it was fun to watch.
After his second breach, he slapped his tail a couple of times and swam away.
We headed home. I did not even get my gear out of the bag but at least our day ended on an up note. Seeing a breaching whale was great!
Hopefully the weather during the day was calm enough for the whales to want to swim with us on my next day on the water.
Apparently none of the other boats had had any luck either.
Lunch was fun. We went to this beautiful beach at Port Mourelle on Kapa Island. On the way we oooogled at the massive boats moored off the beach. One of them (allegedly owned by the richest man in the world) was 5 or 6 stories tall and had a slide...yep a slide that went from the top story down into the water. It was crazy. It even had a part that extended out to anchor itself against the side of the boat. Another huge yacht was moored behind the massive one...it must have arrived first. I bet he thought that he was "all that" until the larger boat, that dwarfed his boat, pulled up. Then to add insult to injury... he started to inflate the slide. We passed another boat that had multiple "dinghies" of varying sizes...one of them almost the size of our boat. This was apparently THE place to park expensive boats.The beach was another picture perfect place.
After lunch we went over to the west side of the islands. It was the same as it had been all morning...if not more frustrating. We drove around for an hour and saw very little. Sam (our whale guide) stood at alert.
He spotted a pectoral fin in the air. A humpback whale's pectoral fins can be up to 15 feet long...so it is noticeable when they raise their fin out of the water. It was still an amazing spot...seeing one pectoral fin in the ocean of blue. As we raced over, we hoped he would stay around. Luckily, he continued to splash and hold his fin or tail in the air as we approached. He decided to increase his aerobics routine.The humpback began body lunging. This is when they propel the front half of their body out of the water...like a submarine surfacing. And with their big dark bodies and torpedo shape, they really do look like a sub surfacing. He lunged several times. It was impressive. But it did not stop there. A few minutes later, he breached. Breaching is when they thrust their whole body up and out of the water. I can not imagine how much power is required to thrust that much mass up and out of the water. AND then they sometimes twist which wraps their pectoral fins around their belly. Just impressive!
 |
 |
 |
 |
No one knows why they slap, breach or lunge. There are theories that range from trying to knock sea lice or barnacles off their bodies to curiosity to playfulness. Whatever the reason...it was fun to watch.After his second breach, he slapped his tail a couple of times and swam away.
We headed home. I did not even get my gear out of the bag but at least our day ended on an up note. Seeing a breaching whale was great!
Hopefully the weather during the day was calm enough for the whales to want to swim with us on my next day on the water.
No comments:
Post a Comment