Gorda Banks
This morning before breakfast we encountered our first humpback whales of the voyage. They were traveling in courting groups—one female followed by several optimistic males, the males jostling each other for the preferred “escort” position next to the female. The males pushed and shoved one another and occasionally we saw them hit each other with their long pectoral flippers. Time after time they would dive and show their flukes; in humpback whales the specific display patterns differ greatly from one whale to the next. Whale biologists use these distinct patterns to identify individuals and we send our best pictures to those who catalogue them, along with the time and location of the sighting. People all over the world cooperating in this same way have helped us develop quite a complete picture of the migrations of these whales from the Alaskan Arctic to the waters of Mexico and Central America, as well as the separate migration which travels to Hawaii. Nearly everywhere we looked throughout the morning we saw blows and flukes. It was difficult to decide which whales to take a closer look at first. Throughout the morning we were able to get quite good looks and excellent photographs of many whales.
In the afternoon we stopped at Cabo San Lucas for some birding and snorkeling before heading into the Pacific for our next rendezvous with the gray whales at Bahia Magdalena.
This morning before breakfast we encountered our first humpback whales of the voyage. They were traveling in courting groups—one female followed by several optimistic males, the males jostling each other for the preferred “escort” position next to the female. The males pushed and shoved one another and occasionally we saw them hit each other with their long pectoral flippers. Time after time they would dive and show their flukes; in humpback whales the specific display patterns differ greatly from one whale to the next. Whale biologists use these distinct patterns to identify individuals and we send our best pictures to those who catalogue them, along with the time and location of the sighting. People all over the world cooperating in this same way have helped us develop quite a complete picture of the migrations of these whales from the Alaskan Arctic to the waters of Mexico and Central America, as well as the separate migration which travels to Hawaii. Nearly everywhere we looked throughout the morning we saw blows and flukes. It was difficult to decide which whales to take a closer look at first. Throughout the morning we were able to get quite good looks and excellent photographs of many whales.
In the afternoon we stopped at Cabo San Lucas for some birding and snorkeling before heading into the Pacific for our next rendezvous with the gray whales at Bahia Magdalena.
