Whales Watching Us

We know they pop up and look around. The whalers called it “spy-hopping” when whales slide up and out of the water just high enough so that their eyes are above water level. What do they see? Worlds above and below the waterline so radically different - what do they comprehend of boats and people and landscapes? Do they hear our voices?


Spy-hopping is different than “breaching”, it’s a slower, more careful, maybe more deliberate canvass of the neighborhood. Breaching is that upwards thrust of exuberance and vitality, more like being shot out of a canon.



The old whalers wouldn’t have had a name for the behavior exhibited last week by 2 Humpback Whales because instead of spy-hopping or breaching near The Lovely Martha the whales spent 20 minutes watching a boatload of whale watchers.

Photographer Ed Estes’ explains: “We sat there floating in the water with the engine off as two whales had surfaced near the boat. They spent the next 20 minutes or more moving around the boat circling at least three times and passing under us. There were a few others in the area that we had seen before this and even a case of spy hopping in the distance but these two seemed very curious about the boat.”


In case you wondered, the whales did not jostle the boat at all when they passed below it and resurfaced alongside (well, I know I asked that question!) Oh, and besides those 2 Humpbacks, they saw 10 more...

Photos by Ed Estes. Text by Kathleen Jacques.