Some of world’s largest mammals offer whale of a story
by Michael McDermott, reporter

     When I was a kid, my great aunt, over the course of several visits to her house, read me the story of Captain Ahab's wild ride with a white whale. Covering only a few pages at a time during each overnight stay, about twice every three months, we took over a year to finish the novel.

     Like many people of my 40-something generation, my impression of whales was not exactly positive.

     In fact, if one believes Herman Melville's assessment, they were very large, mean-spirited, even vengeful creatures with sharp, pointy teeth. In other words, something to be feared at least.

     But an up close and personal encounter with the great leviathans changed all those antiquated stereotypes. That's what whale watching is all about.

     Something wonderful came into my life just a couple of years after reading Moby Dick with my aunt. The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau and that gentle and brilliant oceanographer and conservationist first showed us all that whales, some of the largest mammals on earth, were as gentle and brilliant as he was.

     Because of Cousteau and other forward thinking people like him, whales gained their protected status in the world.

     Whales’ popularity and the mystery surrounding them led the first enterprising souls to begin what are now known as whale watching excursions.

     The first of those whale-watching boats set out from port almost 32 years ago off the tip of Cape Cod, Mass., from the small coastal hamlet of Provincetown. The people of this once thriving hub of whaling industry quickly tell visitors that whale watching, as it exists today, began in Provincetown.

     It was from there that a friend and I set forth recently on just such an excursion on a day that would prove to be one of the most spectacular days in the history of whale watching.

     Well, it was one of the most spectacular in my personal history of watching whales, including two trips out from San Diego to view gray whales, two times off the coast of Cape Cod and once in Puget Sound near Seattle to view the orcas, or killer whales as they used to be called.

     Humpback whales are the cetaceans common to Cape Cod, and on a crisp sunny autumn day last October, they were everywhere. In fact, Capt. Rick of the Portuguese Princess, the company we chose to go with that day, said that it was his best whale watching day in 15 years.

     For at least an hour he raved on, “We’re surrounded by them!” and “I've never seen so many humpbacks in one spot before. This is amazing!”

     Forty minutes into our trip, we were surrounded by as many whales. The captain proceeded to explain the whales' behavior as we all ran from starboard to port and stern to bow.

     One whale surged straight out of the water and flopped down on its side. “That’s a breech!” the captain shouted. “That’s rolling,” he explained as the whale rolled over on its side and waved its huge fin in the air.

     Humpbacks are characterized by their elongated pectoral fins and also the sizable white patches of barnacles on the head and tail.
     “That’s Max,” he said, identifying the returning whale by the pattern of barnacles on his tail. No two whales’ tails are alike, like the stripes on a zebra or the spots on a leopard.

     Certain whales will return to the same spot year after year. Just off the coast of Cape Cod at Stellwagen Bank, the ocean floor rises from around 300 feet to just under 60 feet deep, creating a kind of hill or plateau under the ocean. Here, millions of tiny fish, smaller than anchovies, swim in schools and make easy trappings for the whales.
     “Look at that mouth,” said the captain, as the huge gaping maw of a large female or cow humpback pierced the surface of the ocean and clamped down on a swarm of tiny fish. The humpback is a baleen whale unlike the famous toothed whale, Moby Dick, which was a sperm whale.

     (By the way, sperm whales are extremely rare, considered endangered species and very difficult to spot these days.)

Instead of chewing its food or using teeth to catch larger fish, a baleen whale uses strips of coarse cartilage, which run the length of its mouth in tight rows to catch and strain the food out of the water.
     The gray whales of California, fin whales and blue whales, the largest of all living creatures on the planet, are all also baleen whales.

With the passage of laws creating a ban on all commercial whaling worldwide, the popularity of all sorts of whale watching has increased across the planet.

     Dolphins, like all whales, are also cetaceans, but the people of Japan continue to hunt and kill them for food. However, such activity can only be stopped by sanctions against the offending countries, and that has not happened yet.

     Dolphin watching is one of the most popular forms of whale watching throughout the world.

     A group called Dolphin Encounters, just off the coast of Texas near Port Aransas, offers a close, personal experience with dolphins, where one can reach out of the boat and touch the dolphins.

     This viewing goes on year round in Texas, but at Cape Cod the best whale watching is in June and October. Then, the humpbacks are off to the Caribbean for winter.

     Laws have also been passed from country to country restricting the companies conducting whale-watching tours. In the United States, laws vary from state to state, but generally boats are not allowed to pursue the whales.

     Pods or groups of whales may be approached slowly. Individuals may be followed along side, but the boats must veer away from the whales to prevent collision; however, boats may cut their engines and allow the whales to approach.

     In our case, a large pod of whales made-up of many small pods, was feeding over Stellwagen Bank.

     The whale-watching boats are not allowed to disturb feeding behavior. The crew can assess the situation, and after gathering information from nearby boats conducting the same activity, they  can proceed with caution.

     On this particular day the number of whale watching boats was unusually light, and after an hour or so, ours was the only vessel there witnessing the amazing event.

     The whales were so into their feeding, they appeared to ignore us completely, except for one whale caught spyhopping off the starboard bow, or right side of the boat.

     A whale is spyhopping when it bobs its head vertically up above the surface of the ocean and back down again. This way they figure out what’s around them, or in our case who was watching him back.

     A near 40-foot whale swam directly under the boat. The group of about 50 or so on board our boat let out a collective gasp. Such a sight. I would challenge even the most anti-nature lover not to be moved by such an experience.

     The entire boat oohed and aahed and even applauded as the whales’ enormous flukes disappeared each time beneath the surface of the waves as though the whales were performing for our benefit.

     The marvelous thing about the experience—they were just being themselves: capturing our imagination as their lives go on as they have for thousands of years.