The ship was heading back to the marina to finish up the excursion when the spray of a humpback was spotted. This was a whale watching excursion after all, so we made a hard right and hit the gas. Weeeeee that was fun! We were able to observe this whale for 10 minutes as it was feeding at the surface. It is a baleen whale so it would take in big gulps of fish and then the water would strain out through the baleen. We had been watching boils of fish that would disturb the surface and attract the birds. The humpback was also attracted to them and it would swim in sideways with its mouth open and gobble up the fish or krill or whatever was coming to the surface. The guides on the boat were very pleased to see this rare sighting and they said one of us must have worn their lucky shirt. It was Leslie!
Coming in sideways
Birds fish and whale
Take a breath
Take a bite
Squeeze out the water
The nostrils on the humpback are in the missel of the whale and at the top
Arching
Diving
Down
Down
Gone
Another pass at the biol
Moving on
The fish are still boiling to the top
With the magic of the zoom lens we could see individual fish
So the whale s back
To have a second helping
Starting the last dive
Hump is under
Fluke is emerging
Water pouring off the fluke
Dripping
Changing the angle
Almost straight up and down
A bird coming in from the right
Sinking
One last wave goodbye
Bloop it is gone
