Travellers on a recent Wildcoast Adventures kayak expedition got the humpback whale show of a lifetime and it was all caught on video (seen above from the company's Youtube account).
Damon Stapinsky, owner of the adventure company, told CTV’s Gord Kurbis, he has never seen anything like it before.
The group of 10 kayakers and two guides stopped just south of the Penn Islands, which are in between Read Island and Cortes Island. They had heard over the radio that there was a humpback whale feeding her baby. They floated there for about half an hour just watching, careful to keep the 100 metres distance between themselves and the whales.
There was a tail flip, and Stapinsky said he thought that was the end of it, and then baby breached.
“When baby came up I actually said to the group alright guys back paddle even though she wasn’t even close to us,” he said. “But when momma came up – that was after – it was apparent that we needed to get back and get back fast. And we did and we saw baby do it one more time.”
Stapinsky said whales breach because they are happy or excited.
Though they were a safe distance away to begin with, the 60 foot long 40,000 kg whale closed that distance quickly.
“I wanted them to have the experience but I didn’t want it that close,” Stapinsky said. “We are very confident that we followed the guidelines it was just unexpected and exciting.”
The group back paddled quickly and watched as baby and momma swam away towards Cortes.
“This is a once in a lifetime experience, but we do see lots of wildlife,” Stapinsky said. Just the day before the group saw a pod of 30 to 40 dolphins.