Chasing Whales...

While halibut fishing with Lauren and Paul Dorweiler, we noticed some whales spouting out in the bay near us, so we pulled up the anchor and charged over there for a closer look.  We enjoyed a half dozen whales that were in a loose pod - maybe a half dozen all within a mile or so. Maria says they are Humpback whales - the species that is most commonly seen in Kachemak Bay.  They were swimming along the surface as whales do, spouting, and all at once, the body would make a huge arch and the fluke would come out and down they would go.  It was amazing to me that amidst the tidal current and the waves, the whale tail would make a huge slick on the water - a calm spot that looked like a toilet bowl flush, but the thing is, it would just stay there for five or ten minutes.  Just think - if a boat goes by, there's a wake, and it passes by and the water resumes its normal look relatively quickly - but when the whale flukes and goes down, it completely disturbs that place for such a long period of time. What power they must have!  In the boat, on the slick, directly above the diving whale - one had the feeling that you could be sucked down in the toilet flush.  We were laughing about that.

Paul, Lauren and I enjoyed these whales for a couple of hours.  They were the first whales I had ever seen, and it was special because I'd been watching them for over two months.  It was nice to be able to share this with two good friends.  Funny, the draw the whales had.  Our purpose for the day was to go out and catch a limit of halibut, then salmon, then rockfish or ling cod or whatever we could get. But, when the whales showed up, all of that was postponed.  We kept saying, "let chase just one more whale and then we can go fishing", but the lure of continuing to observe them was just too strong.  We observed a cow and a calf together.  We followed them as they swam along the surface, just in front of the bow, and then had them fluke maybe thirty yards off the bow.  A highlight came when I happened to be looking at Lauren's face, and suddenly it just lit up. I looked where he was looking just in time to see a mammoth splash.  Apparently a whale had come up from the depths full force and completely breeched - it's entire body flying through the air. Lauren saw the whole thing!