[CINC] Condor 10/19: Best BLUE Whale Day EVER - jumping - lunging - racing

[Kevin Bailey]

1 Minke

5 Blues

1000 Common Dolphins

 

Even if you NEVER read the text, YOU GOTTA READ THIS!

 

Today was the most amazing blue whale day ever. Even Capt. Dave said he had
never seen anything like today.

 

Our 1st encounter was a Minke that surfaced about 4-5 times and was as good
as an elusive Minke sighting can get.

 

Next we came upon a megapod of Common Dolphins and this was not your
ordinary megapod. These were major acrobats. They were jumping all over and
not just your standard porpoising but 10-12-15 feet into the air or even
higher like they were catching a fish at a Sea World show. I got a picture
of a dolphin that was completely horizontal to the water - probably 10 feet
above the surface. They were jumping everywhere; 3 here; 5 there; all in
unison; everywhere you look was jumping and flying dolphins. Some were even
jumping straight up in the air and spinning like a Spinner Dolphins all in
an amazing circus act.

 

Then I saw the first blow of the day as we were headed toward SRI and it was
a monster blow, even at quite a distance. Capt. Dave turned the boat to go
back toward SCI where we saw the blow and we saw a 2nd huge blow and
realized there were 2 monster blue whales in the area. We hung out with
these 2 whales for about 20 minutes until I saw a huge splash in the
distance that looked like the size of 3 breaching whales at the same time.
It was the biggest splash I have ever seen. We left the pair of blues we
were watching to investigate the giant splash. When we got to that area, we
were witnessing what can only be described as racing behavior. There were
initially 2 blue whales that were racing, lunging and rolling which created
a huge amount of splashing. They were chasing each other and lunging forward
with 1/3 of their body out of the water. This created huge splashes with
water flying everywhere. Then a 3rd whale showed up and the behavior
intensified even more. I got some pictures with 3 whales all at the surface
lunging and rolling around. After watching the show for a while, 2 of them
raced directly to the boat. They were headed straight for us like a guided
missile and the lead whale's dorsal fin surfaced immediately in front of the
boat and then the head surfaced less than 20 feet from the starboard side of
the boat. The 26 passengers from around the world including Ireland, Czech
Republic, OK, NJ, TX and the LA area were all truly stunned at this
spectacular display of nature.

 

After waking up to fog where we could not see the fence in our back yard we
were very grateful for the relatively clear sys once we got about 2 miles
off shore and the day was definitely one of the best whale watching days
ever!

 

My wife Toni and Carol Celic were along for the ride with Captain Dave,
Dennis and Amanda.

Kevin Bailey, PID

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