Ho Hum, another whale

A recent trip out on the water during a hazy but otherwise beautiful afternoon to harvest kelp from one of the many kelp beds not too terribly far from Wrangell provided the opportunity to identify a new whale.  I have done much less boating this year than usual but it seems that the few trips that I have done have led to some memorable encounters and experiences.

Meet Khaleesi.

This is a new humpback to add to the photo book that I have been compiling over the last few years bringing the number of whales identified and photographed to 25.  If there are any Game of Thrones fans (aka nerds) reading this, I have to say that the name was not my idea.  Andrea is as big of a Game of Thrones fan as I was until the last season ruined everything for me but I like this name and she got the best tail photo so the honor of the naming was hers.

This whale was travelling alone along a shoreline periodically lunging partially out of the water as it scooped up schools of feed fish.  A solo whale meandering in close to shore then further away and sometimes changing direction is not an easy whale to follow so after 30 minutes of photos and nerding out, I decided to motor on to the kelp bed unless the whale did something more interesting.  I literally said something like, "Unless this whale does something interesting like breach I'm going to start the motor and head out" and then this happened.

Seconds after I made that statement, the whale breached a few times and then began to slap its tail on the water for a few minutes before moving on.  I feel pretty confident in saying that these are my best whale pictures yet.  So much depends on being in the right place at the right time sort of luck and making the efforts to be in that right place at he right time.  Thank you to this whale for being the magnificent being it is and for presenting us with this opportunity!

What an amazing place this place can be!

Here is an update to this post regarding this whale that is worth reading on for:

Andrea posted her pictures of this whale on Facebook and probably Instagram and a woman in Juneau contacted her to let her know that she had seen and photographed this same whale in Juneau in 2009 when it was a calf.  The Juneau whale nerd was very happy to know that this whale was still active and said that it had gotten darker since 2009 but it is most definitely the same whale.  If you look at the pattern of dark lines on the left fluke there is no doubt that they are the same whale.  The pattern on the right fluke isn't as distinctly similar but the dark spot is the same.
Here is her photo of it in 2009:

Did you notice it's nickname?  Kelp!!!  Andrea and I came across a whale named Kelp while we were out harvesting kelp!  I shit you not!  Isn't that just cool?  It's one of those things that just make me wonder about all the things we don't know and how much we have wrong that we think we know.  For every answer there are 3 more questions that result.  Is naming a whale Kelp unusual or special?  No, not really, kelp is common here in SEAK and humpbacks sometimes use kelp beds to help them corral feed fish for eating but Andrea and I encountering a whale that just happens to have been named Kelp while we were out on a boating trip specifically with the goal to harvest kelp is unusual and special.  All of the circumstances required to line up for this encounter are approaching infinite I would say.  The ocean, even the part of the ocean comprising the Inside Passage of Southeast Alaska is pretty vast, there are 24 hours in a day and many days in which humpbacks are here but we just happened to cross paths with it on that specific day, at that specific time, in that specific location.  There is something divine about that to me.  This encounter combined with the fact that I was seconds from leaving unless this whale "did something interesting like breach" makes me feel connected to the world in a way I would have to spend a lot of time trying to describe.  Humble and grateful sum it up though.

Okay, one last update about this whale.  I have an account on a whale website that tracks whales all over the world and lets people submit their photos in order to add to a growing database as well as let the contributor learn more about their whale.  This whale has also been photographed and documented in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii on January 15, 2015.