Images of Kenai Fjords National Park Humpback Whales – Southern Alaska, taken in July 2015.

Up to this point I have endured all sorts of obstacles on this trip; fires, earthquakes and even bear encounters but what happened next was almost the end of me! We were watching a young humpbacked whale play; swimming on its back smashing its fins against the water and fluking. This went on for some time and I diligently captured each movement. Then he fluked and went under. We waited…and nothing. Thinking he had gone I turned to shoot a coastal island when I heard the crowd “ooooo” in unison. I turned just in time to see the young whale sore into the air, a beautiful breach! I turned and shot as he splashed into the water. We all looked at our cameras, all I had was a splash. The woman next to me immediately turned to show me the picture she had gotten and yelled “I GOT IT, I GOT IT”! She had; she did. In that moment, and I’m not proud of this, I thought about throwing her overboard but I didn’t because my sense of right and good stopped me…that and the fact that her husband was big enough to play linebacker on a college football team! And the shot of that island, you won’t see it here…because it SUCKED! If the two of you are out there, please forgive me for my momentary lapse of judgement and don’t worry about the fact that I cry myself to sleep each night…because I missed the shot!

As magnificent as Humpback Whales are to watch under any circumstances, on this day we were all treated to an incredible spectacle called Bubble Net Feeding. This is when a pod of 12 to 15 whales dive deep under a school of fish and create a cylinder of bubbles around the fish that extends to the surface. The confused fish swim in a circle within the cylinder as the pod of whales dive below and then swim upward together, mouths open, taking in the fish as they come up. The whales surface to drain the water that they’ve taken in with the fish. The sea gulls, seeing from above what was taking place and wanting to get in on the fishing, always knew exactly when the whales would surface and therefore tipped us off as to where to look. It’s an amazing site to witness and I felt as if I was watching a National Geographic special! Then we saw it again…five times in all on our seven hour boat trip! Three of those sightings are represented in this gallery and two are multi-picture sequences to allow a better feel for what we witnessed.