Galapagos 2008

So we got back into the Pangas and started trying to find the whales, only it's hard to find whales in the distance from so low, so the ship picked us up so we could chase them in the larger, more comfortable vessel

And it didn't take us too long to see them spouting in the distance

Here are some Boobies and  a Frigate Bird, and two of our Naturalists, Lourdes and Maria Elena, who took the opportunity to steer the ship.

We never saw the Killer Whales again, but the chief naturalist thought he saw a humpback, and we got close to a bunch of Byrds Whales or Tropic whales...

Here's a sequence from just after the blow, (it's hard to catch) as the whale rolls at the surface and submerges... you can see the relatively tiny fin, far down the back)

We got too close to one, and it left us a cloud of whale poo

But, being that close, I did capture the whole sequence so you can see the head and nostrils in this one...

And to cap it all off, a Manta Ray swam directly under the prow of the boat