One Close Pass After Another
A story from Kate Spencer.
Killer whales with Fast Raft in the background
Up close and personal clearly describes this Kate’s multi-part story. And Kate’s no ocean novice. A long-time naturalist, now owner and captain of her own whale watch vessel, the Fast Raft, Kate has nearly seen it all. Killer whales, humpback whales and gray whales all populate her exciting tale.
KATE SPENCER currently owns, operates and is chief naturalist for Fast Raft Ocean Safaris, a small six-person RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) whale watch operation. She runs trips primarily out of Moss Landing on Monterey Bay. Kate started leading whale-watching tours on Monterey Bay as a naturalist in 2001 and began managing operations at Fast Raft in 2014.
Captain Kate was born in Washington, DC and grew up in nearby Arlington, Virginia. Her well rounded, liberal arts education included studies in biology, studio art and comparative religion. She holds a degree in organismal biology with a studio art minor from Smith College in Massachusetts.
After graduating, she worked at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in DC as a scientific illustrator. Kate became very interested in tuna while preparing an exhibit illustration piece for the Smithsonian. She came to Monterey because of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the near-by Stanford Hopkins Marine Station, to learn more about these charismatic fish. Originally here to work for three weeks, her stay soon stretched into five months. During that time Kate met a number of ‘whale people’ and signed up to go to Alaska to do whale research the following summer. There she participated in humpback whale field research with the Alaska Whale Foundation.
On her return to California in 2000, she got off the boat in San Francisco and has been in the Monterey area ever since. With Monterey as her base, Kate has shared her knowledge and used her skills in various whale-focused communities in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
As a naturalist, Kate has guided small boat encounters with the friendly gray whales of Baja California, lectured on cruise ships on the Inside Passage, and driven Zodiacs on Antarctic tour expeditions.
Kate’s photographic data has been instrumental in helping build the Happywhale.com citizen science whale tracking site. She is also on the advisory board of California Whale Rescue and a first responder for entangled whales.
You can watch Kate’s story on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/zdl7mjJ_5zE
ONE CLOSE PASS AFTER ANOTHER
I’ve had so many amazing wildlife encounters on Monterey Bay. Starting with my first whale watch here, I went out and we saw a blue whale, which I didn’t even know you could see near land. It turns out, of course, that they feed near land, but I didn’t know that. I thought you had to go out into the middle of the Pacific Ocean to see a blue whale. I also saw a breaching humpback. It breached like 30 times, and I saw 2500 common dolphins that stayed with the boat for 45 minutes. So, I was immediately hooked by just sort of an average whale watch on Monterey Bay.
One of the most amazing things that I’ve ever seen has actually happened several times – interactions between humpbacks and killer whales. I was the naturalist on a boat that found humpbacks following the killer whales that were hunting a gray whale calf, and the BBC, on a different boat, arrived later and filmed the rest of the encounter.
But I was on the boat that got there first, and we were watching eight humpbacks following this family of killer whales chasing this gray whale mother and calf. We were actually pretty far offshore. Those hunts typically happen near land, but this was out in the middle of the bay. And it was just amazing! These humpbacks were trumpeting and tail slashing in the general direction of the killer whales, even though they weren’t getting right next to them that I ever saw.
This went on for hours. We were there for about an hour and a half. The other boat arrived and filmed it and stayed for several more hours. The action just went on and on as these killer whales finally killed that gray whale calf. And these humpbacks stuck around, I think even after the mother gray whale had left. I think that’s how this story goes.
But just seeing that for the first time, humpbacks going after killer whales and being so obviously agitated, was pretty incredible. Most of the time they’re just diving down to the food and they come up for air, then they dive back down. It’s generally pretty calm.
This time the humpbacks were staying at the surface and just splashing and trumpeting all the time, and obviously following these killer whales as this whole hunt moved around. I’ve seen that a few times since; most notably on the small boat which I run now.
About a year and a half ago, maybe it was two years ago – it’s still so fresh in my mind – we got out there on this glassy morning, and there was this huge raft of sea lions. And we spotted killer whales going after some of these sea lions. Most of the sea lions hadn’t realized what was happening, but there were humpbacks feeding in the general area. And then the killer whales started going after the sea lions, and the sea lions started scattering in different directions. Whole groups of sea lions would swim away, then start coming back and they’d lift their heads looking like “what’s going on? ” Then the humpbacks started paying attention to the killer whales, and started sort of gathering around them. This kind of goes on in slow motion for a long time. You have to be really patient and watch, because these dramas aren’t necessarily all at a human pace. They’re slower. Things happen under water, and then you see some of it at the surface, and then it disappears again.
But what happened over the course of this hour, was that these humpbacks just sort of gathered and were following the killer whales around as they were trying to hunt the sea lions. And then the sea lion groups would split and come back, sort of looking around. And why are these stupid sea lions looking around? It’s because the killer whales already had a sea lion.
And the killer whales are trying to eat their sea lion and these humpbacks keep chasing them, giving them a hard time, and eventually the whole thing went under our boat!!
We were sitting there at a very good, respectful, safe distance, with the engines off, making no noise, just watching, and then everything just turned toward us. And the humpbacks chased these killer whales, which ducked under the boat to come up on the other side. The humpbacks turned and one went over here and did this big tail slash over behind us and came up trumpeting. And another humpback was over there, and the killer whales, the mom and the juvenile, were sort of regrouping over here. It was amazing to have that come toward us.
And we know they knew where the boat was, I think. There was just enough water motion that I know they could hear us. And it seemed that the killer whales were actually using our boat as a screen, putting something between them and these big, bullying humpbacks! Any time whales come close is incredible. And when you’re on a small boat that’s low to the water, you’re so close when they come close to us. You get such an amazing sense of how big they are. And having this drama happen right under us! We yelled, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe that just happened.“ It was so exciting!
And I’ve had other experiences where whales have come up to check out the boat, not during interspecies interactions, but they’ve just come over to look. A whole family of killer whales circle the boat and duck under and come up next to us. Others that come away from their group, pop up next to the boat to look at us, then go back to the group. And I‘ve had a humpback come and spend fifteen minutes, while the boat’s sitting just stationary in the water, and this humpback just comes up next to us, disappears, rolls, comes up under the other side of the boat, barely touching us, looking. For fifteen minutes, just checking us out.
Those are really the ones that stand out in my mind. Anytime you get that curiosity or just are lucky to be the thing that’s in the way that they want to use. Getting a close pass is always the most exciting thing.
