Whales Ahoy!

This is the obvious day for an Aprils Fool post, but this really happened to me this morning.

I saw dolphins out in the water this morning, so I decided to go for a swim. I hit a patch of terribly murky water but swam through it to the clearer water on the deeper side. Which is when this mother humpback whale swam up to me. And I mean, right up to me so that she could look me directly in the eye. Her calf was above her and it checked me out too. The escort swam underneath me.

This was my closest encounter ever, and she had to maneuver her fluke (side fin) out of the way to keep from hitting me with it. These photos were all taken zoomed all the way out so, yes, I was that close.

I heard the dolphins chirping and clicking but did not see them while in the water. I saw them again once I got on shore.

Clicking on any of these photos will take you to my whale photos web page where you can see larger versions. The top nine photographs on that page were taken in sequence this morning, the rest were taken on other days.