Whales, Antarctic November 2023

The travel home and all of the chores that awaited me in combination to the utter overwhelming nature of whales and the Antarctic have delayed this part of the narrative.

Photos of whales are mostly underwhelming. They are usually taken at a distance, and it happens so fast that by the time you remember that you want to take a photo, reach in your pocket to get what ever device you are using, and point the thing, the whale is gone.

The other side of the experience is that the moment you see a whale, your life changes. The experience is so deeply moving.

We saw several different whales: Humpback, Minkie, Orca. Mostly we saw them from on the ship. It gave us height to be able to see the whales at a distance.

The orca we saw were playing in the bow wave. My photos didn't take

Those on the kayak expedition has one that surface right in the middle of them.

Many of us got to post at HappyWhale.com

And then this happened. Turn off your sound. I am clueless about video editing and haven't figured out how to edit the sound out. Let's just say we were very excited and we were not self regulating our vocabulary.

I was in the zodiac with my favorite boat driver, Matt. I had learned to pay attention when he says quietly "I think there is something over here." Nobody had seen anything, and the other zodiacs were way off over there. Except for our buddy zodiac as they are always in pairs.

I mean it when I say turn off the sound

Then it got exceptional. I looked down behind us, by the motor. I did not get a photo of her looking at us.

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