Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/06/whale-watchers-amazing.html
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That’s the stuff there.
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Peek-a-boo!
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That is the laugh of someone who thought, for a split second, that they were all going to die, and upon not capsizing or being crushed, released the tension in the only way possible.
At least, that is what it sounded like to me 
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Ker-FLOOOF!!
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I know I’ll sound like a wet blanket, but I hope that one day the whale watching grift gets as much respect as sedated elephant photo-ops in Thailand.
When it’s free-for-all commercial, it turns into scheduled and aggressive harassment, and not the serendipitous magical meeting that’s advertised.
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Excellent. One of my best experiences with whales was in Costa Rica, returning from a dive (where we heard the whalesong). A calf started pacing our boat, breaching and diving a few metres away with a lot of enthusiasm for about 10 minutes straight. Every so often, Momma whale would breach the surface a little further out just to make sure baby was safe. It really was a wonderful sense of connection to our fellow mammals.
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“OK, you distract them by exhaling and shooting a little water up from like 5 tails away from their craft, while I subtly sneak over and WHOOSH, belly-flop a whole bunch of water right at them really suddenly. I swear, it’ll be hilarious and we’ll totally be like internet famous.”
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I got back from Iceland recently, and at least according to the literature on board, it was fairly measured. They’re restricted in what manoeuvres they can make how close to the animals, how many boats can be how close, how long they can spend trailing any one animal / pod, etc.
They spent a decent amount of time talking to us about the impact, begging us not to try whale meat and to discourage others, etc (that we can’t rationalise our impact as “just trying it” when there’s more tourists than islanders, etc).
I’m sure there’s scenarios where it can go horribly wrong, but our experience felt pretty balanced.
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And the whale was thinking - “you wanna see whales? I’ll show you a WHALE!!!”
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That whale in the distance was just a decoy.
Clever girl…
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“Computer? Show me the transparent aluminum, please.”
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the nice thing about everyone being soaked with seawater is that nobody notices that I just peed myself.
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Eh, that whale was just throwing itself in the path of a shark, to protect the hoooomannnns…
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…and the people filming it are — leaving the scene, without rendering assistance?
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Had the audio on, but not one of the passengers remarked dryly, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.” C’mon people. When life gives you set-ups like that, ya gotta nail the line.
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I don’t think any of those passengers said anything dryly for a while after that encounter.
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That was definitely deliberate.
Clever girl, indeed…
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