For our first trip we headed 15 miles west, past the shipping lane. We had wet conditions on the way out due to a coastal southerly wind. Once out there we spotted two humpback whales; one was closer to us, while the other was farther off. We paralleled the closer whale for several minutes as it travelled.

The whale was not feeding. No food appeared to be present in the area.

There was some shipping activity in the lane. We spotted some big splashes from the farther whale, suggesting that it was breaching.

The whales were a little bit closer on our second trip, although the southerly had increased and the way out was very wet. We found three humpbacks in about 85 feet of water.

One of the whales was closer to us with a small spout.

We observed this animal for several minutes before sighting the other two on the other side of the shipping lane. We saw some fluke dives from these animals. We had anchovies on the fish finder and birds in the area, suggesting that there was food. We saw some inbound container ships. The two far whales swam directly in front of the ship before safely popping up behind it. Then they swam across our bow.

By the final trip of the day, the conditions had improved and it was less wet than the previous trips. We returned to the same area, where we found three humpbacks in 107 feet of water.

The humpbacks were feeding, but moved around quite a bit as they did so. One of the whales did a close approach on the stern of our vessel. As it came closer, we were able to identify this whale as Akula. This was the third time we had seen Akula this week.

-Allison

This post was adapted from a blog, read the original here