04-12-2012: Surface Feeding Humpbacks, Incredible Upclose and Personal Encounter
Wow! What an amazing day out there today with these feeding humpbacks. I would have to say that this was right up there as an all-time humpback encounter! We had at least six humpbacks feeding all around the boat. We saw many different types of behavior today. We saw some decent lunge feeds, pectoral fin slaps, tail lobbing and a lot of tail flukes. The krill they were feeding on was quite shallow. So their tail flukes were sometimes sideways. Like they were just kind of lunging sideways as they dove. We also had a friendly come up under the bow of the boat, then turn over upside down and just kind of sat there for about 10 seconds. It was very cool.
We also had a scattered pod of about 50-60 Pacific white-sided dolphins that were in there feeding right alongside the humpbacks. That was quite a site to see. What we think was going on was that the humpbacks were feeding on krill and anchovies while the Pacific white-sided dolphins were feeding on anchovies that were feeding on the krill. The ecosystem was happening out there today.
We also had quite a number of downwind whale spouts come our way. And let me tell you, it’s very clear when your in the midst of a whale spout. The odor is quite foul. But it’s still a pretty cool thing to experience.