Boat Friendly & Mind Blowing
Two stories from Kate Cummings.
Friendly whale
Little can top friendly whales. Kate, owner and captain of Blue Ocean Whale Watch, shares two amazing encounters, one with a well-known, friendly killer whale showing off an elephant seal carcass, and a humpback whale that dove beneath their boat and lifted it up with its back. You can see why it was hard to choose between the two stories.
KATE CUMMINGS is co-owner, captain and naturalist for Blue Ocean Whale Watch. She is also an excellent photographer, but when asked about her photography, Kate humbly replied, “I like taking pictures.”
Kate was born in Santa Cruz, CA and grew up largely in the Bay Area. She later returned to Santa Cruz to attend the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) where she studied sociology.
Her interest in whales started at the age of 10 when the movie Free Willy came out. Initially her interest focused on killer whales, but soon expanded to all whales. She said she even dreams about whales. Kate saw her first whale in Monterey Bay when she was 18 on a whale watch trip with her mom.
While studying at UCSC, Kate met someone who worked as a deckhand and quickly decided that she had to do the same. Her first marine job was working out of Moss Landing as a deckhand on a whale watch boat, but she graduated to naturalist after a year, as she says, ‘because of being a big nerd.’
You can watch Kate’s story on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/Pq2brPfB3y0
BOAT FRIENDLY and MIND BLOWING
Part 1
It was 2011, the first year that Jim and I were running Blue Ocean Whale Watch. We came out of the harbor and had only gone maybe a couple of miles, and we see killer whales up ahead. And we’re getting closer and we stop and we’re like 100-150 yards away, and we see that there’s a male in the group. So there’s a male and a female and her two offspring, CA138’s and Fat Fin. And we noticed, once we stopped, that Fat Fin totally changed direction and came towards the boat.
And it’s a beautiful day: June and hardly any wind, glassy and sunny. They’re very few June days when it’s nice and sunny like that. But Fat Fin came right next to us, stopped about five feet off our port side, and we looked down and he was carrying a carcass between his pectoral fins. It must have been an elephant seal – we couldn’t really tell as they’d already skinned it. But a HUGE carcass – I didn’t even know they could hold something between their pectoral fins.
And I’m shouting on the PA to everyone, “Oh my gosh, he’s coming over, he’s showing us his carcass, it’s unbelievable!!! And…. as he released his pectoral fins, the carcass began to sink a little bit and he went after it. And another whale watching boat was coming over to watch the killer whales, too, and we noticed that as that boat was approaching, Fat Fin turned and went right for them as well. He had been carrying the carcass all the way over to that boat to show them, too. I just couldn’t believe that he just wanted to show off what he’d caught!
Then the rest of the day, we sat in one spot, and this pod of killer whales just circled around the boat harassing northern fulmars, which was sad for the birds, but it was pretty amazing. The whales were kind of playing target practice with these birds all around our boat. The water was just so clear, and we could probably see 15’ down, so you could see the whole silhouette of the killer whales coming up next to the boat.
It was just a very magical day.
BOAT FRIENDLY and MIND BLOWING
Part 2
Next story! This was when I was working on Sanctuary so this must have been 2008. I was brand new to whale watching, and so with every experience I was just overly excited, probably even more excited about it than the passengers were. And we came out and we had one of the first friendly humpbacks that I’d seen. And Sanctuary is really low to the water. You can just dip your toes in if you swing your leg around the side of the boat.
But this humpback came over to us and rolled all around and was just inches from the boat, looking up at people. And it went right underneath us, and I could see its tail on the side I was on, and then the captain is looking through the door on the other side, and he could see its head on the other side. And I’m freaking out and taking pictures of everything and shouting at passengers to look down at the fluke, and the Captain grabs my arm and he pulls me over and says, “Don’t say anything to anybody, but the whale is lifting up the boat right now!!!”
And I was like: “You shouldn’t have told me!!!” (Laughter) I’m gonna freak out right now! And once he told me, I could feel that the boat was moving and it wasn’t just a wave or anything, and that the whale was actually supporting the boat on its back. Who knows if it was scratching its back or whatever – just messing with us, I don’t know. But it lasted a few moments and then the whale came out again and started rolling around again in front of the passengers.
It was pretty cool.
And the passengers were loving it. Happens anytime you’ve got a whale that’s right underneath you, and it spouts right in people’s faces. I love when people are holding their cameras over the side and the blowhole is right there and the whale just sprays right on their cameras.
Thank you for sharing your story with us Kate!
