Haleigh | M/V Osprey | August 11, 2022 | 12:30 pm
For Thursday’s classic whale watch tour, we departed southbound to scan the open waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to find any whales and wildlife lurking about. Our search began scanning the shallow banks where nutrients pool at the surface due to topographically-associated upwelling. As the nutrients collect near the sunlight, photosynthesis occurs sparking massive phytoplankton blooms. What comes afterward is a reaction following up the food chain, where zooplankton come to feast, then small crustaceans and fish, then larger fish, and eventually our marine mammals like Harbor Seals, Steller’s Sea Lions, Harbor Porpoises, Minke Whales, and Humpback Whales.
With no luck in finding whales at Salmon Bank, we pushed further offshore towards Hein Bank following the pelagic birds headed towards a bait ball. As we slowly cruised over the shallowest part of Hein Bank (about 12 feet), we saw a Minke Whale! Its slender, dark-colored body and sickle-shaped dorsal fin gave us no doubts that this was our smallest baleen whale (still reaching lengths of 35 feet). After only a few surfacings, we received a report of a Humpback Whale not too far away and decided to move in that direction.
As we slowly approached the supposed area of the reported Humpback, we scanned in search of any blows. Instead what we found was the Humpback Whale logging at the surface in a patch of Bull Kelp! For the following hour, this whale played in the bull kelp, at times just sitting at the surface with the fronds draped over its back. It waved its pectoral fins up through the air and even popped its rostrum up at the surface a few times with the tubercules covered in some kelp! What made this encounter even more special was the fact that we sat with our engines off for the majority of time since this whale wasn’t moving directionally. With calm seas around us, we could sit in silence and just admire this playful whale.