Wed, July 25, 2018

Although our journey out to the whales may have been a little bumpy and wet, we were rewarded by some amazing sightings!  Spoon and her calf were the first pair of humpback whales that we saw. I LOVE Spoon!  I adopted her when I was in high school (just a few years ago….ahem…) and have been tracking her ever since! Spoon is known for being a very large, and very lazy whale. Today she was anything but lazy. We watched as bubble clouds would rise to the surface and she would charge through them, catching all the little fish that were trapped in the cloud! And to make it even more amazing, her calf was mimicking her behavior even though it is still likely nursing.

Then we saw some splashing not too far away. This was Jabiru’s newest calf creating quite the commotion.  The calf rolled around, slapping its flippers, tail breaching, head breaching and doing all sorts of fun above-the-surface activities! The calf entertained us (probably just trying to get mom’s attention) while Jabiru herself was taking long dives and not surfacing all that often. We got one nice look at her tail so we know it was her!

Continuing on, we found a pair of adult humpback females, Nine and Milkyway. These two have been together for a couple of weeks now! As we waited for them to come back up, yet another mother/calf pair appeared, and just as suddenly, disappeared!   We got one more look at Nine and Milkyway before riding the following seas back to Rye.