I had the chance to run out on my boat and look for some humpbacks on Wednesday, September 19^th.

Soon as I get to the oceanside of the inlet I see a few dolphins in the inlet and a few old friends on a boat, Mike and Dave. I was more interested in the dolphins, BUT Mike and Dave were doing a photo shoot with a surfer being towed into the surf by a Jet Ski. I can’t pass this up, so I stayed for a few shots of them doing their thing. I didn’t want to crash their party, so I moved on, giving them room to be creative.

I move offshore and ran into like a 100 frisky Dolphins. I stayed with them for a while, but this was a humpback whale watch and need to see what I came out to see…HUMPBACKS!

I saw a blow, then another and I have a humpback. It was a lazy whale, zig zagging all over the place, when humpbacks are not predictable I give them their room. I turn up the music, so it knows where I am, take the boat out of gear and watch. I am glad I did! The whale moved away from me and at a good distance. BOOM does a full breach, I caught part of it. It segues into a few chin slaps which I knew were coming and were ready for it.

The whale went back to zig-zagging and came directly at the boat, very close a few times and cruised under the boat once. With the water being so clear, I could see the whale beneath me as I go from one side to the other, camera ready watching the whale. Hey, after just seeing the breach and the chin slaps a few minutes ago, it’s a bit unnerving having the whale close and under the boat but not to the point where I’m freaking out. I have been doused by a breaching whale splash before and had bunker thrown at me into and on the boat from lunge feedings its crazy! I don’t want this to happen today.

The humpback moved away and so did I, it was time to go in. Nice to see you, whale, until we meet again, and…we will meet again!