On today’s whale watch, we headed to a spot a little above the southwest corner to find three humpbacks in the area. Luckily the rain held off offshore to give us fantastic looks of Thalassa and her 2014 calf, who were continuing their curious behavior a bit from yesterday.

Thalassa's calf spy-hop

Thalassa's calf diving

This mom and calf pair repeatedly swam under our bow, so our captains aboard the Salacia just kept the boat out of gear the majority of this trip! A few times while the mother humpback Thalassa was down on her dive (see photo of her fluke), the calf gave us a few surface activity surprises including a spyhop (see photo above), a breach, and little rolling/milling at the surface. The calf was also fluking a bit (see photo).

Thalassa's fluke

During our trip, a large Mola mola drifted by as well, and came right up alongside the boat (see photo). Later in the trip we observed some seagulls “pecking” at the sunfish, which despite the looks of it is beneficial, as seabirds have been observed removing parasites from these floating drifters.

Mola mola

We also had a third humpback foraging nearby, that joined Thalassa and calf on our last looks. This whale was later identified as male humpback Peninsula.

— Laura