Time to get out of bed! Beautiful morning light painted the bellies of breaching humpback whales during our very early wakeup call. Framed by Baranof Island and Admiralty Island, there were a few dozen whales sprinkled before us displaying their most impressive characteristic: an energetic leap accompanied by a monstrous splash. Feasting on abundant krill by night, perhaps these whales like to end their graveyard shift with some acrobatics before they rest for the day’s herring feast. Although these whales live amongst us throughout the year, their life is mysterious and alien from our own, so it’s likely that we’ll never know why they breach.
Luckily for us, we were visited by Dr. Andy Szabo, director of the Alaska Whale Foundation and expert on Southeast Alaska’s summer visitors. Andy shared the findings of his decades-long research and also some great, impossible-to-quantify anecdotes. It all left us with a better understanding about what we do, and most importantly, don’t know about humpback whales.
Although the rest of the day was spent in the quiet confines of the temperate rain forest and plying the still water near Hanus Bay, our minds wandered back to the airborne behemoths at sunrise. Their life is intimately tied to this forest by a web of faunal interaction amongst phytoplankton, crustaceans, fish, and mammals. Our paths now having crossed, we look differently at whales and their mysteries, always left to wonder just what transpires in their alien world.
Appendix 1: Dinner was happily interrupted by two male killer whales. Due to incredible water, light, and subject, we (yet again) burned the candle at both ends staying up quite late to watch two inky claymores slice through the water as only an apex predator can do.
