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Thanks, Laura for your report!<BR>
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A little more on the trip... for some reason, the Blues put on quite a show this trip. We had to go west quite a ways off Santa Rosa to find them. As you know, often, they just don't show much, blow a few times & then back down. This trip, we saw long expanses of dorsal exposure, and two flukes (one up close) and the finale was the one Laura mentioned, which surfaced nose-to-nose with the Condor. We were just sitting, waiting through a breathing cycle, and "whoooosh", about twenty feet off the bow heading straight for us, and then it dove under the boat. HoleyMoley!<BR>
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We were watching this one pair most of the time, (2 big whales, one much darker than the other) and at one point, another whale spouted nearby, and then one of the pair hung a sharp right apart from the lead whale (female?). Next thing we saw was a pectoral fin and, later some splashing between two whales off a ways. We were thinking maybe the lead whale was female, with the third one getting too close. Surrre wish we could see real clear to about 20-50 feet below the surface from the boat. As it is, we could see maybe 5% of that brief interchange between whales & just guessing the rest. Then, it seemed the first two were back together again.<BR>
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Let's hope we have more days like today and a fabulous Blue Whale season.<BR>
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I have never seen a Humpback that close to Blues before. I have never seen an entangled Hump, either. We sure hope there will be some good news on that score. This Hump seemed to be staying down quite a long time. He had two buoys on him, and scaring on his fluke peduncle; like perhaps the tangle used to be on his tail, but eventually came off.<BR>
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Shirley Johnson<BR>
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