We had favourable conditions today as we headed out into the bay aboard the Pacifica. Captain Rod, deckhand Daniel Rosa, and I (Naturalist Pete) found a light swell, with pretty much no wind throughout the trip. We started the trip heading out west to see if any of the activity from yesterday was still around, but it looked like it had all passed.
We turned back into the bay, and a layer of fog made it a little bit difficult to locate animals at the start. Daniel Rosa and our passengers managed to spot one single humpback pop up behind us at one point, but it disappeared once we stopped to have a look at it.
Before long though, we found our way to a nice pair of Humpback Whales. We found them because a large cloud of birds had gathered, and the animals looked to all be feeding on anchovies. We arrived at the spot, and sat with this pair for a while, getting great looks.
It looked like this was a mother and a calf pair of humpback whales. They associated closely together and cooperated with us by taking short dives and spending quite a bit of time at the surface. They swam around in circles, relatively predictably, meaning that each surfacing was nice and easy for all of us to see. We got great looks at tail flukes, tubercles, and we even managed to get both of them swimming right next to the boat!
After a while the birds flew off, and it looked like the feeding was over. So we headed back into the harbour. Although it was initially a little tricky, we still got awesome looks at Humpback Whales! Let’s see what we can find out there tomorrow!
Naturalist Pete
