Our First Whale Spotting

When we were out in the Puget Sound with Sallad and Grace, we saw a whale pod! This was our first time seeing whales in the wild and it was amazing. We were just speeding along on our way home and all of a sudden The Mr. said he had seen the spray of a whale. We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw several whales surfacing. Sallad stopped the boat right away and we eventually made our way a little closer (but not too close!) It was so incredible. These creatures are massive and so graceful in the water. It seemed like they might have been feeding back and forth along the ocean's edge. We think they were Gray Whales. Gray whales have often made their way up to boats and have even let people touch them, which I think would be amazing. You can easily find pictures of it around the web. I don't know if I could actually get that close to an animal this huge, I would probably be way too scared. I guess it would depend on how big the boat was but I am glad it didn't happen this time.

This is the spiny looking back of the whale which is right behind the dorsal hump. You can see a drawing of them here on the Cetacean fact sheet.

On the right you can see the dorsal hump. If this was a humpback whale, there would be a pointed dorsal fin, and I don't think Humpback whales are "in season" in March whereas Gray whales are known to start making their way into the Puget sound in late March. If anyone reading this thinks it might not be Gray whales, I would love to hear your opinion in the comments!

Grace took the photo above with her camera. Isn't it amazing how she caught the water coming off the whale's tail? It was so much fun to watch the whales, they were just amazing.

Here is a video, but please excuse my poor camera skills as these were the very first videos I took with my new camera. Next time I know what to do different that's for sure!