Re: [Paddlewise] Whale Encounters Of The First Kind

I remember some on a wavelength thread (some while back) mentioned
that they were painting their kayaks the color sembalence of an orca
to discourage rather intimidating sea lions. Now wouldn't that put one in
a pickle if the mother of a calf from another whale species panicked thinking
that there were Orca near her calf. Hmmmmmn. There are advantages and
disadvantages to such coloring. I would imagine it would make it near
impossible to approach an sea lion colony with out causing major panick.
Moreover, the thought of an Orca attempting to get amorous sends shivers
down my back. The French kayaker 'Morivorand' (Sp?) had a whale dock up
along side his boat for about four hours while doing an Atlantic crossing.
Interesting.

Regards,

Philip

Doug Barnard wrote:

> At 08:59 AM 4/12/98 , Philip Wylie wrote:
> >I am curious to learn of what encounters have been experienced from
> >whale encounters where someone has had their kayak slammed, bumped
> >lifted, brushed out of the way or slapped by the tale of  passing Orca
> >or other
> >whale species.
>
> I haven't had an encounter in a kayak, but I can pass on some discussion
> from Ed Gillet during my experience of whale watching in Laguna Ojos de
> Leibre (Scammon's Lagoon, Baja, outside of Guerrero Negro).
>
> The current wisdom is that whale encounters are more difficult with a kayak
> than a motor boat. Ours was a 22' panga with a 45 hp outboard. A pair of
> young females (they can be quite curious, can't they?) were spouting about
> a mile or away when we first saw them. The whales altered course and came
> over to inspect us. They gracefully froliced around the boat for about 15
> minutes or so. This was entirely voluntary on the whales part; we weren't
> enticing them in any way. At one point, as one of the whales was passing
> slowly under the boat, she slowly rolled on to her side and looked up at
> me. Truly a moving experience!
>
> I guess that it breaks up a whale's day to go and visit a boat that has a
> bunch of arms and faces waving excitedly. The whales probably have some
> spare time on their hands, I don't know.
>
> Ed said that with kayaks, it's hard to catch up to the whales, and they
> don't really know what it is. Might be a predator! Especially if the whales
> have recently calved, this could be dangerous. Ed speculated that the
> underwater sound of the outboard allowed the whales to locate the boat, and
> come over to it, rather than vice versa.
>
> ________________________________________________________________
> Doug Barnard                                   Virtual Acreage
> Agoura, California (near L.A.)        Visualization in 2D/3D/4D
> http://virtualacreage.com                    818-991-9328



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