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Watch: Tourist drenched by gray whale; ‘I was sprayed on purpose’

Beatriz Moreno knows a thing or two about stinky whale breath after her close encounter with a gray whale recently in Mexico.

Beatriz Moreno knows a thing or two about stinky whale breath.

Moreno, 30, was watching gray whales recently in Mexico’s Ojo de Liebre Lagoon when one of the mammals paused alongside the charter boat.

The accompanying footage shows the Glendale, Calif., resident positioning herself near the whale so Charlie Harmer, owner of Silver Shark Adventures, could capture footage of her wonderful encounter.

But at almost the precise moment when Harmer directed Moreno to look toward the camera, the whale exhaled a plume directly into her face and mouth, prompting a mixed reaction of joy and disgust.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CM3e3pyHkCw/

It’s clear that Harmer, who runs whale-watching expeditions at Ojo Liebre from February into April, had set up his client. But the timing was so perfect that viewers might wonder whether the whale’s action also was intentional.

“It feels like they do it on purpose,” Harmer told For The Win Outdoors. “That’s why I set her up, because I could see it happening based on the body language from the whale. I’ve been observing them for 10-plus years there, and after hundreds of encounters I can guess when this is going to happen.”

Said Moreno of the early March encounter: “The thing I feel when I play that video now and look back is just how human these animals are. They’re playful and there’s no doubt in my mind that I was sprayed on purpose.”

Call it an initiation of sorts.

Ojo de Liebre Lagoon and other Baja California lagoons are seasonal nursing and mating grounds for thousands of gray whales. During their stay, before they migrate back to feeding grounds off Alaska, they often interact with tourists on small boats.

The whales are curious and sometimes allow tourists to touch and stroke their skin, and because they exhale powerfully as part of their breathing process, tourists are sometimes sprayed.

Moreno said that throughout her time in the lagoon she was “mesmerized and incredibly aware of what a once-in-a lifetime type of moment I was living.”

Despite being pranked, she said she would gladly receive another gray whale drenching.

“Maybe this time I would close my mouth, though,” she joked.

Humpback whale boosts spirits in struggling Alaskan town

A humpback whale has been frequenting Ketchikan, Alaska, almost daily for the past month, helping to lift spirits as the city reels from a lack of tourism.

The whale, nicknamed Phoenix, is feeding on herring and possibly salmon fry with dramatic upward lunges, sometimes just yards from onlookers on docks and walkways.

As days shorten and a bleak winter approaches, more residents are discovering the joy of searching for Phoenix throughout the channel fronting the town.

“I love everyone’s photos of him. He is a star!” reads one of hundreds of comments on the Whale Spotters Ketchikan Facebook group page, whose membership has spiked recently to more than 2,600.

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Some are posting alerts, so others will know where to look. “Phoenix is heading south from Safeway, now. 10:30 a.m.,” reads a Sunday morning post.

A comment last Friday: “I love how many people are gathering to see this whale! If I didn’t see all of the cars parked along Berth 4 I would have missed this today. Thanks for making it obvious when he is near, fellow whale lovers.”

This comes at a time when many of Alaska’s humpback whales have migrated to nursing and mating grounds in Hawaiian waters. But Phoenix, for now, is content to fatten up in the chilly, rich waters off southeast Alaska.

“I know for a fact that there are still quite a few humpback whales up here not far from Ketchikan, but this is the only one buzzing so close to town,” Dale Frink, a photographer and naturalist, told For The Win Outdoors. “A lot of people, especially kids, have been able to see a whale up close for the first time without having to get on a boat.”

Ketchikan, whose economy relies heavily on cruise ship tourism, lost that revenue this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But residents are trying to look past this year and their mood seems to brighten whenever Phoenix opens wide for a giant gulp of tiny fish.

“Ketchikan rises from the ashes of 2020 with Phoenix the Humpback Whale leading the way,” Frink wrote last week on an Instagram post showing Phoenix feeding a stone’s throw from onlookers.

Frink, who moved to Ketchikan recently after accepting a job at Allen Marine Tours, allowed the use of his photos in the body of this story. The top image, which shows some of Phoenix’s admirers, was approved for use by local photographer James Lewis.

Phoenix was named by photographer Bob Lippert, who was the first to document the whale off Wrangell, Alaska, in 2017. Phoenix, whose sex is unknown, has since been documented several times in the channel between Wrangell and Ketchikan, according to the Happywhale citizen-scientist identification catalog.

How long the whale will remain off Ketchikan is anyone’s guess.

–Images courtesy of James Lewis (top) and Dale Frink

Amid an eerie haze of smoke, whales emerge to feed

A surreal orange haze that has prevailed across portions of California this week also has spread across coastal waters, casting marine critters in an unearthly light.

A surreal haze that has prevailed across portions of California this week also has spread across coastal waters, casting marine critters in an unearthly light.

The accompanying images, captured Wednesday by Blue Ocean Whale Watch in Monterey Bay, show humpback whales and a Risso’s dolphin in what Capt. Kate Cummings described as “a natural sepia filter” created by wildfires.

“Yes, it was apocalyptic on the ocean too; and no, it didn’t stop the humpbacks from being humpbacks,” Cummings wrote in a video post on Facebook.

Cummings’ charter encountered humpback whales and Risso’s dolphins as a patchy orange sky darkened considerably in late afternoon.

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“My instrument panel lights were visible the entire day, when typically you can only see the lights before or after sunset,” Cummings told For The Win Outdoors. “It was surreal to say the least.”

The mammals weren’t always easy to spot in such conditions.

“The photographers on board had to be watching their ISO settings constantly, at one point up to ISO 4,000 to adjust to the low light,” Cummings said. “It was eerie, creepy, and sometimes beautiful.”

The entire Bay Area – and many other areas in California – have been affected by smoke from wildfires for the past several days.

Cummings said conditions improved markedly on Thursday, however, as she motored into Monterey Bay with another charter group.

–Images are courtesy of Eric Austin Yee (top two) and Doug Croft

Whale swipes tail at surfers, hits three boards and nudges swimmer

Video shows no less than 40 surfers and swimmers in a cluster watching a whale and its calf swim in close proximity to them. Too close, as it turned out.

About 40 surfers and swimmers gathered in a cluster last week to watch a southern right whale and its calf swim in close proximity to them off Manly Beach in Sydney, Australia.

At one point, the mother whale seemed to go into protection mode and did a sweeping turn in front of the crowd. With its tail, the whale took a swipe at the surfers, hitting three surfboards and nudging one swimmer who appeared to attempt to swim atop of the whale.

Josh, one of the surfers, explained to The Guardian, “There was a bit of pointing going on and I looked round and the little one was just there. Then mum came in pretty quick smart, I think, when she realized how close people were.

“You often see [whales] farther out the back, but this one just came right up to where people were hanging on their boards.”

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At first, some thought one of the whales had been caught in a shark net but that wasn’t the case.

“I think everyone was just paddling up to get a good look,” Josh told The Guardian. “It’s a sort of thing you won’t forget seeing.”

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