Tuesday, March 24, 2009

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!


17 comments:

  1. WOW! That is cool. I've never seen a whale besides in Sea World... haha. Someday you will take me whale watching right?!

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  2. That is Amazing! I would have LOVED to see that! So cool. And how did you edit your video? I've been wondering how to do that with my videos...

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  3. Wow! That's incredible! They're so graceful and majestic!

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  4. Holly, if you have windows you most likely have a program called Windows movie maker. Just do a search for it. When you open it up, just read the help section and it will tell you how to do everything. You can trim clips, put them together, mute them, add music to them and add transitioning effects as well as add photos in.

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  5. Soooo incredible those creatures are! Reminds me of our trip to Alaska!

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  6. Neato-o! Wow--great pictures of the whales! What an experience. I really liked your photo editing too. I'll have to see if that program is on my laptop. The only place I have seen whales has been around Depoe Bay where they came in close to shore, but not that close! Cool!

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  7. So exciting!!! Thanks for sharing. Having your own boat (especialy when you live near the puget sound) makes for alot of great opportunites and fun otherwise missed out on.

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  8. You got some great pictures, I don't think I would want something that big close to a small boat either. Very cool experience.

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  9. Thanks for sharing. That's a great experience! from your own boat. I saw some great whale performances off Cape Cod.

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  10. Oh Chatty...how beautiful! Isn't God's creation amazing! Looking forward to seeing you soon! Don't you ladies work too hard between now and then!

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  11. Very neat! I would have been so scared! I have never seen a whale before and I just know they are huge so I would be scared they would get too close and tip the boat or something! Still beautiful experience and pictures!
    -Preggo

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  12. You got some awesome pictures! We really enjoyed seeing the whales in Oregon, but nothing like this! What an amazing experience.

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  13. Preggo- if you youtube grey whales you will see that they are very gentle and come up to boats to let people "pet" them. They eat really small things like shrimp and fish eggs and have hair for teeth.

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  14. I don't know if I would trust something so big to just eat small things! Haha I would be so scared of it knocking over the boat and eating me! Yikes! I'm a big baby! Haha
    -Preggo

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  15. I was exactly the same way - freaked out if I thought we were getting too close! I could just picture one coming up underneath our boat and tipping us all over. :) Cool photos Coralee!

    - Lisa

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  16. Lisa you should really youtube gray whales and see how calm and friendly they are. The videos are amazing!

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