First of
all, it was probably not the whale’s fault.
I was taking a day off, and was going out paddling with Geoff, the lodge
manager, and Mike and Lindsey, two new staff who were very keen to try some sea
kayaking. We packed our lunch, launched
our kayaks, and began making our way up the bay towards Aialik Glacier, five
miles away. Shortly after leaving the lagoon, we saw the
first whale, which spouted, unusually loudly, maybe a half mile away from us.
She appeared at the surface a few times, and then dove. We got a pretty good look at her. Then, the second whale turned up – and this
whale was both closer to us, and also in the general direction that we were
heading. Geoff took off in a beeline
right towards the whale, which was still a few hundred yards away. I followed, along with the two new
staff. I figured this was one of my
only opportunities this summer to do somewhat irresponsible things on the water
that I absolutely would not be able to do with guests – like chasing a whale. Also, I didn’t think that we had any real
chance of catching up with this whale.
But, I did hope that we might get close enough to get a better look at
the guy, and maybe get some pictures.
Famous last words.
To my
surprise, the whale was continuing to hang out in about the same place in the
water, and we were able to get close enough that, when he next came to the
surface, we got great views – you could hear his blow, and make out the little
whiskery bumps on his chin. He looked
small, for a whale. He surface again,
slighty behind our boats, and I could see his back arch as he started on a
deeper dive.
About
thirty seconds later, a gigantic sea-monster of a whale surfaces right in front
of my kayak, bellowing this loud, Tyrannosaurous-style roaring exhale. It is the loudest sound I have ever heard a
whale make, and the whale in question is only about forty feet in front of my
boat, and heading straight towards me.
I start backing my boat away, then decide that maybe I shouldn’t get any
closer to the whale behind me, and stop paddling. I think I remember yelling ‘Hey whale’, as
though it were a bear, and slapping the sides of my kayak. The big whale dipped back underwater, but
she was so close to the surface that I could see the water being displaced as
she swam. Junior Whale is still behind
me, but at the moment, I am far more concerned with the bigger one heading
towards my boat. It felt like we were
being herded, like the whales had maybe decided that their preferred hunting
strategy - cooperatively driving small fish into a tight cluster that could be
easily dispatched in a couple of mouthfuls - would work just as well on kayaks
as on krill.
The whale
came up again, between my boat and the tandem kayak with the new staff, still
roaring through her blowhole like she was a charging rhino. She was close enough that I could have
touched her with my paddle. She dove,
deeper this time, and suddenly we were all scanning the water, trying to figure
out where the whales were going to come up next – and all desperately hoping
that the whale wouldn’t decide to
surface underneath any of our boats.
The big
whale came up again, on the other side of my kayak, and rolled in the water,
almost as though she were trying to get a good look at us. At this point, I started paddling left, a
direction I was pretty sure would take me further away from both of the
whales. Mike and Lindsey were right
behind me. Geoff stayed where he was -
blithely reminding us that the whales were really only dangerous to people if
they decided to breach on top of our boats – but I figured at this point the
whales were making it very clear that they did not want us this close. And the big whale was still making that
shrieking exhale whenever she surfaced.
Moments
after reminding us of the relative harmlessness of humpback whales, Geoff yells
“Oh shit, she’s under my boat!: He
started paddling his kayak out of there faster that I have ever seen him paddle
before. Now that all three of the
kayaks were in full retreat, the whales appeared to back off as well, nuzzling
against each other’s flanks as they surfaced.
If I hadn’t figured it out before, this was the final clue – this pair
was a mother and a calf, and Mom Whale had apparently not been happy with the
interest we were taking in her youngster.
From the
relative safety of 50 yards away, we regrouped, and took some pictures, all of
us having been too busy fearing for our lives to do so earlier. We watched the pair for the next twenty
minutes as we continued paddling towards the glacier. Strangely, Mom Whale almost invariably made
the same loud, high-pitched exhalation when she came to the surface. From a distance, the noise seemed less like
an angry bellow, and more like some sort of weird breathing condition. It almost sounded like something was
constricting her airway. We also
noticed that she would occasionally remain motionless at the surface for
upwards of a minute, which is unusual for whales. Our boat crew had also reported seeing a
whale elsewhere in the Bay that was spending an inordinate amount of time at
the surface. I think this must have
been the same animal. At any rate, it
was a little reassuring to think that
the whale wasn’t intentionally roaring at us when she popped up so close to our
boats. On the other hand, I felt guilty
that we’d caused a potentially ill whale to rush over to check on her calf just
because we’d wanted a closer look at her baby.
 |
| The humpback whale pair in Aialik Bay |
Was this an
asthmatic whale? Is this what happens
when a whale gets a head cold? We
haven’t seen, or heard, from this whale since, so I am assuming she and her
calf have moved off to other, fish-filled waters elsewhere in the Gulf of
Alaska. Another, more kayak-tolerant whale is feeding in the Bay at
the moment; we ended up following about fifty yards behind him for around a
mile on one of our guide training trips.
(We weren’t chasing this one; we just both happened to be travelling
along the same bit of shoreline). From
what I’ve seen in previous seasons, the humpback whales tend to leave the bay
by late June – but kayaking with whales in the bay is always a fine line
between magical and terrifying.
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