With all of our engine problems, the short 100nm trip from Bahia was a slow and stressful one. It was slow because we had to motor-sail into a 2 knot current, hard on the wind; stressful because of all the fishing boats either dragging lines or with nets. In all our passages we saw more boat traffic on this short jaunt than any other passage. However, it was also magnificent, we saw WHALES!!!! And not just a couple, we saw a ton of them.
From June to October thousands of giant Humpback whales migrate from Antarctica to the waters off of Ecuador. These beautiful creatures come north to warmer waters to breed and give birth to their claves. Adult Humpback whales range in length from 39-52 feet and weigh approximately 79,000 pounds. That makes them bigger and heavier then Karma. You would not want to hit one, yet we were chasing them down so we could get a closer look.
We had several that swam alongside us slapping their long pectoral fins on the water. This is one way of how they communicate with each other.
There were water spouts all over the horizon. Most of the time you would hear it before you would see it.
They would swim along, dive down, and then after some time surface again. It was really difficult to capture.
Sometimes they would go down for longer than usual and then out of nowhere they would surge up out of the water completely coming out of the water and then thundering down onto their backs. Amazing.
Unfortunately we were not able to capture a very good picture of their out of water acrobatics, we were too dumbstruck. Over the course of two days we saw over fifty whales, some only fifty feet off our boat. At one point we had to change course to avoid hitting a sleeping whale.
It was one of the coolest experiences we have ever had. We were treated to our own private SeaWorld show in the wild. Priceless!