WAVING WHALE - WE WAVED BACK
Short after we headed out into the bay in search for some whales a humpback caught our attention. Huge splashes appeared in a distance. We didn’t hesitate to take the chance and speeded up to reach it in time.
While still watching out for it to appear again, suddenly a big black and white body pushed itself out of the water. The humpback was breaching just about 50 metres away from us. We decided to slow down, while the whale went down for diving, once more speeding up for another breach.
To be able to jump completely out of the water a humpback needs to reach a speed of 15 knots (about 8 m/s) by the moment it breaks the surface, what is close to its maximum speed. This time the whale breached just some metres away. Everyone on board was stunned by the spectacle.
After breaching a few more times the whale calmed down a bit, rolled on its side and lifted one of its flippers out of the water. While watching us with its tiny eye it started kind of waving, keeping the flipper in the air, moving it forward and backward. Entertaining both passengers and crew a lot, we started laughing, while the whale kept on waving. Some of us even decided to wave back.
Finally, it waved goodbye to us and the boat, the flipper slapped onto the surface, the eye disappeared underneath the surface while it was rolling back. It took one last, but deep breath and went down for diving, raising its beautiful tail out of the water.
As it didn’t show up again for very long we decided to leave that whale behind and headed back further inside the bay.
- Sarah
Flipper slapping humpback whale. Photo: Our passenger Katrine Ross, Denmark.
