Bubbles!!!!!

Hi everybody!  The season has officially kicked into high gear leaving little time for any large adventures.  But luckily for me, every day at work is its own adventure!

This week brought something that we don't see very often and no one ever knows how long it will last.  The humpback whales have officially started bubble-netting!!!  Not every whale bubblenets and they don't do it all summer.  This unique behavior can last for a few days, a few weeks, or even a few months as it did a few summers ago.  So far, this group of four whales has been bubblenetting nearly continuously since Monday!

Now, a few notes about what a bubblenet actually is.  Humpback whales eat schooling bait fish, such as herring.  The whales have come to figure out that if they find these fish in the correct configuration, they can blow bubbles around the outside of the bait ball and the fish (since no one ever said they were the brightest creatures in the ocean) think they are trapped in a net.  The fish therefore swim upwards to make a futile escape attempt but instead are engulfed by the whales' huge wide-open mouths as the humpbacks swim upward through the bubble ring.  Voila! Bubblenetting!

Please excuse my shrieks at the very beginning of the video, but I was trying to get all of my guests to look in the correct direction haha.  The reason I knew where the whales would come up was a combination of watching the gulls flying in the air and also seeing the huge circle of bubbles popping to the surface.  If you listen closely, you should also be able to hear the whales as they exhale!

Also, I got to see a resident pod of Orcas.  We believe it was the A5 pod!  Here's a quick video of them.  Please excuse the chatting in the background; I was technically working and therefore have to talk to people. :D

Needless to say, yesterday was a FANTASTIC day on the water!  Now for more "work" today!  Wish you were here!