Whale Spotting

[MurrayM]

Agreed...great stuff!!

Eric,

Sorry to hear about your bumping into those whales; must have been unnerving. It's impossible to tell sometimes where they're going to pop up next.

I almost had a head on collision with one while sea kayaking in Grenville Channel, but managed to just miss it with some aggressive rudder action and a big sweep of the paddle. You think they would be keeping an eye out for logs, which must hurt if it bounces off your blow hole.

You're right, that is a pretty amazing photo my wife got straight into the blow hole. Sure is an impressive, formidably muscled piece of equipment!

 

[MurrayM]

More really great stuff at Scott's site;

Scott Boyd's Emerald Sea Photography

 

[markpierce]

Mark

You need to get a camera with a BIG telephoto lens.............
Best thing I ever bought for use on the boat.

Drowned my 3-power camera tripping out of the Trinka a couple months ago. My new camera has up to something like 20 or 30 power.

 

[Russell Clifton]

Hi Guys; No picture of this encounter but I have a story. This happened this past July in northern BC.I was by myself trolling for salmon, about fifty feet off a steep shoreline. The water went straight down and it was about 200 feet deep this close in. For some reason I turned to look behind me and I saw a large head of a whale come out of the water about 200 yards behind me, coming my direction, right next to the shoreline. If he keeps coming I can reach down and touch him as he passes by. At this same moment I saw my rod "go off",so now I had a fish on and a whale coming right towards me. At this point I was so shocked I didn't know what kind of whale it was, but I assumed it was a orca as they some times fish this close to shore. I very quickly horsed the fish in thinking the orca would take it, and ran forward to get my camera to get ready for the photo of the summer. I turned on the camera and the battery was dead!!! Now what! I looked back again and the whale lunged out of the water and right up on the steep rocky shoreline, chasing small bait fish. This time I saw it was a humpback and not a orca. I also had a video camera with me, but by the time I got it out he swam right by me underwater the whole way. So no picture to prove any of this ever happened. I had to go in and settle down a little after that.

 

[MurrayM]

Went out again today...two more Humpbacks, and we saw a couple more spouting on the west side of Douglas Channel as we were coming home. This time we were 30 minutes from the dock

 

[MurrayM]

There is a Whale research station, Cetacealab http://www.forwhales.org/ that's been counting Whales at the south end of Douglas Channel since 2001. They say they have seen a doubling of Humpback Whale numbers on our section of the north coast of BC in those 12 years.

Today we saw eight, about one hour from town. This is as many as I could get in a frame;

 

[BruceK]

Stunning pics MurrayM. Keep them coming.
I`m sensing the nearby whale research station does not think it necessary to kill whales to study them. Neither do we. Japanese antarctic "whale researchers", please take note.

 

[MurrayM]

Stunning pics MurrayM. Keep them coming.
I`m sensing the nearby whale research station does not think it necessary to kill whales to study them. Neither do we. Japanese antarctic "whale researchers", please take note.

Might want to jot off a message to Enbridge as well. They are the "Keystone Kops" (according to the US NTSB) who dumped 3.8 million litres of diluted bitumen into the Kalamazoo River and who, three years later, are still dredging bitumen from the river bottom. They want to build an 850,000 barrels per day pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat, then send 360 VLCC's per year (720 transits) through 2 very confined "Z" turns just to approach the south end of Douglas Channel.

Obviously, a majority of British Columbians want no part of it...

(Point of clarification: The several thousand page proposal is for 525,000 bpd, but there is one sentence that mentions its design capacity is for 850,000 bpd and their intention for making an application in the future to utilize it).

 

[MurrayM]

Here's one from my wife;

 

[markpierce]

Those animals are amazing.

 

[MikeD]

We filmed this in Pelorus Sound a year ago. The Orcas come in the sound to search out stingrays for food at this itme of the year. We will be up there again in 2 weeks time and hopefully we will see them again...

Orca's in Pelorus Sound - YouTube

-Mike

 

[MurrayM]

Might want to jot off a message to Enbridge as well. They are the "Keystone Kops" (according to the US NTSB) who dumped 3.8 million litres of diluted bitumen into the Kalamazoo River and who, three years later, are still dredging bitumen from the river bottom. They want to build an 850,000 barrels per day pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat, then send 360 VLCC's per year (720 transits) through 2 very confined "Z" turns just to approach the south end of Douglas Channel.

Obviously, a majority of British Columbians want no part of it...

Update: Project denied

Been a few more whale spottings in the meantime:

 

[SteveK]

Salish Sea near Saturna Island

 

[MurrayM]

We saw this Humpback breaching in the distance near Butedale, BC. We eased up on it and hung around at a respectful distance (I didn't have a long lens yet!) for about 45 minutes...it was still breaching as we motored away.

Got a long lens now for the next one!

 

[Simi 60]

Had a mother and calf come over for a visit this morning about 80ft away from us.

 

[AusCan]

Great photo's guys.
To my surprise we occasionally get Orcas here in South Australia. Some friends witnessed a pod which showed up at Neptune Island, and fought with the great white sharks that hang out there. The battle of the apex predators. The orcas came out on top. The Orcas took over the turf for about 6 months and there wasn't a white pointer to be seen (which really hurt the local shark cage diving business there.