Whales in the cove! LFTC, with her sonar vision (is that possible?) spotted a disturbance in the water out there. She swore it was dolphins, but TFTC batted her down, there's nothing out there. But it was Cami who first spotted the spout and the back rolling up over the water surface. "Whales!" she announced. And all eyes were on the water. Sure enough, we spotted them, spouting over and over again, in the same area, between the A and B. They would appear and disappear two separate occasions before everyone was ready to head down to the water. LFTC, TFTC, Cami, Ralph, Claudia and someone I'm forgetting. We decided to swim out to the B, to what, I don't know. Rendezvous, get eaten, or just swim in the same water as whales.
We got out there and saw nothing. We waited, climbed onto the buoy, looked and looked. Nothing. Nothin but disappointment.
So we finish our swim, and Mike, the lifeguard, tells us that the whale BREACHED the surface when we were halfway to the B. WTF???!!! I thought for sure he was shitting me. But Bill corroborated the report. Damn!! We missed the real show while we were heads down, swimming for the B.
Water report: 64-ish. Clear from the A to the B. Cloudy inside the Q. Lots of waves on shore.
By Breached do you mean Spy Hopped?
ReplyDeleteA breach or a lunge is a leap out of the water also known as cresting. The distinction between the two is fairly arbitrary: cetacean researcher Hal Whitehead chooses to define a breach as any leap in which at least 40% of the animal's body clears the water, and a lunge as a leap with less than 40% clearance.[citation needed] Qualitatively, a breach is a genuine jump with an intent to clear the water, whereas a lunge is the result of a fast upward sloping swim, perhaps as a result of feeding, that has caused the whale to clear the surface of the water unintentionally.
When spyhopping, the whale rises and holds position partially out of the water, often exposing its entire rostrum and head, and is visually akin to a human treading water. Spyhopping is controlled and slow, and can last for minutes at a time if the whale is sufficiently inquisitive about whatever (or whomever) it is viewing.
Generally, the whale does not appear to swim to maintain its "elevated" position while spyhopping, instead relying on exceptional buoyancy control and positioning with pectoral fins. Typically the whale's eyes will be slightly above or below the surface of the water, enabling it to see whatever is nearby on the surface.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_surfacing_behaviour
yes... so this was my question to White Lips... over and over again... "are you SURE it was a breach?" ... I asked in 5 different ways to see if his story stayed the same.... according to them, it was a breech. out of the water and a large splash. How in the world we missed that blows my mind completely since most of my swim was with my head out of the water LOOKING for such a thing. w.h.a.t.e.v.e.r... you can only ask so many times before they walk away with hands in the air. .... they are calling it a breach! (I still think it was more likely a spy hop)
ReplyDeletenaysayer.
even so, we were in the water with whales!! now go make your donation to www.seashepherd.org before they are all gone.