October 20, 2000

A Whale Of A Day

Had great day at sea, gotta share it!

This time of year Sitka is the focal point of a humpback whale migration. Up to 100 humpback will migrate through Sitka sound. They come here to feed up before beginng the long trip to Hawaii to give birth and mate. Though a large pod (50) has been feeding about 7 miles out only recently have the whales come into the protected waters of Silver Bay.

The forecast called for 45 mph winds overnight decreasing to 25mph but the morning. Luckily the winds never showed up (just the rain) so a friend, Bruce,and I jumped in our boats and went a-whaling.

First though we encounted a sea lion. he surfaced in front of my boat with a small halibut in his mouth and began to eat and play. He (?) would take a few bites then sling it across the water skipping it like a stone, then chase after and chew and toss it again! A group of seagulls began to circle above snatching up the leftovers. All at once an eagle joined in the fray and swooped down to steal the fish from the sealion. I didn't think the eagle had much of a chance but the second the sealion saw it he ducked under ands we never saw him again.

Soon in the distance we saw spouts and headed in that general direction. For Bruce this was his first experience with whales. The humpbacks when feeding will surface and spout several times taking in air for the next dive. Then they will hump up their backs and lift their tails high and dive deep. Since there is no way of predicting where they will come up next we paddled to the general area they were in. Much to our surprise they surface just behing us long before we reached where we thought they were. The explosion of their spouts made Bruce about jump out of his seat! We stopped and watched as the three whales , probably females guessing from their size and behavior, as they "caught their breath" about 40 yards from us. Then as we sat there watching they began to move closer to us passing about 20 yards in front of us. What a sight! Probably 40 feet long and 40 tons a piece! They dove down and we saw the back sides of their tails. Each whale has unique marking on the underside of their tails. Of these three, two had striking almost all white tails! Also we quickly got wind of the whale...their breath was ghastly! Krill breath! yuck! do they sell Scope in 55 gallon drums?

They surfaced a few more times in the distance and Bruce and I paddled around to stay warm (temp low 40's and heavy rain at times). Just when we were about to call it quits they surfaced again just ahead and to the left. Again they when to pass right in front of us. However as they did one of the whales stopped and floated at the surface for at least a minute. At this point it was only three boat lengths in front of me. I could hear the music from the Twilight Zone playing as . . . the watcher became the watched!

It was an erie feeling knowing this whale was checking us out!

Then the whale sharply right and began to swim towards us! I had never seen a whale do this before so it was a very uncertain moment. ( the music switched to Jaws!) If a moment can be both exciting and frightening this one certainly was. Call it a Jonah moment if you will. I was ready to do a paddle brace if necessary (or should I say do a whale of a brace?) I knew though that if there was going to be a collision that I was likely to wind up in the water. Thankfully when the whale got about one boat length away it turned away.

I have had whales close before when I happened to be in the direction they were traveling but this is the first time I had one turn directly towards me.

Bruce and I decided we needed to move on before the whales decided to check us out closer. We went our way and the whales went theirs.

It rained heavily as we paddled back but the we didn't care. We both were cherishing the memory of a life time.

P.S. Do you know what the story of Jonah is all about? It shows that you just can't keep a good man down.
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Copyright 2000 by Rev Bob Carter.
May not be reproduced or redistributed without author's permission.
Originally posted on Paddlewise mailing list on 10/20/2000.
Republished here with permission.