Sunday, December 30, 2007

Serious air in Alaska

August, 2007
These are all images of the same adult humpback whale breaching. Each "pose" seems a little different from the others and there seems to be no end to the variations on the theme. The breach above was more of a head-lunge leading into a belly-flop. Notice that the eye is closed!

This breach is going for the huge arching back-slap with a full twist in mid-air!

Simulating a rocket launching into the sky, or a submarine launching from the depths (of course humpbacks knew how to do this long before we humans built machines capable of these feats!)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but do you think the huge "O" of water off the pectoral fin was intentional? Hmmm....