ACS Sees the "BLUE" of Blue Whales

by Esta Lee Albright

Reprinted from Soundings, September 2005

On Sunday, Aug. 21, in bumpy surface chop, ACS members and guests had about the best of blue whale watching: two very large whales swam alongside the Sea Wolf II for about half an hour. Each time a whale came just under the surface, the famous BLUE, in our case aquamarine blue water, glowed against their light bodies. The whale was outlined in colored light. Then, the top of the rostrum and the two blowholes and the 30-foot spout came into view with a breathy roar. With an undecided sky, the whales changed color as the sky attempted to clear or became overcast -- blue whales look light blue on bright days and dark gray-blue on foggy days. If there is a whale to choose in Monterey, it's going to be a blue whale sighting, for they still are rare, endangered and not always easy to watch even here.

The trip was one of quality rather than quantity. In addition to the blues, passengers were charmed to watch a humpback mom with her calf that was born last winter in the tropics. The mom has a distinctive, tall and large dorsal fin. The calf has been known to play acrobatically during sightings earlier this month. Just to watch them swim together brought hope that humpbacks may continue to recover after centuries of disastrous whaling.

Wind brought whitecaps which may have obscured the splashing of dolphins that have been in the area recently. However, passengers listened to natural history from Nancy Black, Richard Ternullo, Esta Lee Albright, and Tom Keickhefer. Tom wandered the deck with strange objects that turned out to be bones or baleen or krill in glass vials, or even whale poop to be analyzed for whale diet information. His recordings of whales and dolphins were a nice substitute for the hydrophones he had hoped to use. It was a great day to be out with the great whales on a riotous ocean.

Many thanks to Monterey Bay Whale Watch for the gift of this fund-raising trip for ACSMB.
Esta Lee Albright works as a naturalist on whalewatch boats.
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Small ACS logo Last updated September 18, 2005.