A humpback whale off British Columbia apparently enjoys blowing its stinky whale breath onto whale watchers.
The accompanying video shows a 35-foot whale appropriately nicknamed “Windy” directing four blows toward six passengers aboard Legacy, a 30-foot charter boat that operates around the San Juan Islands.
One of Windy’s gusts was so powerful that it blew the camera off a selfie-stick, and the camera fell into the sea.
Said naturalist Heather MacIntyre: “And as we laughed and yelled with joy, she seemed to take great enjoyment out of exhaling on us, and would position herself so we would get the full blow when she let loose!”
Windy is a seasonal visitor to the area and was spotted Saturday in the Haro Strait between San Juan Islands and Vancouver Island.
The whale is famously boat friendly and hurried to Legacy after the initial sighting, about 200 yards away.
“We even started waving to her because she would continually roll to the side so that she could look up at us,” MacIntyre said. “After we started waving, she would wave her six-foot long pectoral fin in response. I mean, these are the encounters that rewrite the text books.”
Windy concluded the hour-long encounter by breaching twice, as if to announce that it was time for her to go.
–Pete Thomas
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