Today is the day of Saint Nicholas, a traditional day in most European countries. This date was chosen to commemorate the day of St. Nicholas’s death and to celebrate his life and generous spirit. Children usually celebrate today by waiting for gifts/chocolate in their shoes by the morning from Santa Claus. Today we can say we got jumping whales as a present from Santa Claus.
At the same time last year, we had a memorable day with orcas breaching. This year the show was stolen by a juvenile humpback whale.
The weather forecast didn’t look very promising for today. It was wind and big swell out at sea. But we have already learned that whales love rough weather.
After a good amount of searching, we saw a young humpback whale spending time with its mother.
The juvenile was breaching several times, for the last time within 10 meters from the boat, while we were floating and trying to figure out where it would come up!
I was lucky with capturing the moment
If you have a closer look at the nearest breach photo, you can see the whale’s eye
They do have beautiful eyes.
And if you look at the next photo in the sequence, you can see that he closed his eyes just before hitting the water. Not to get too much water in his eyes.
I have also added a photo where the enormous splash is visible after a 20-30 ton humpback whale hits the water. This is because the whale must use such power to lift its body above the surface like that.
At the end of the day, we also saw a few orcas, but as I said, today is for the humpback.
Happy Mikulas to Everyone! (Saint Nicholas day in Hungarian)
-Krisztina/Orca Channel
Leave a Reply