Large Sea Creatures

[wkstar]

Tell the story of the Large Sea Creatures , 40 foot or Larger that you saw while on passage.
I am thinking of something big enough to sink your boat if it got to close.
And or what happened while you where a few hundred miles from any land ?

[Unkle Toad]

well not on passage but Anchored in alaska years ago I was once woken up to a nasty grinding sound .. went up top to find out it was a humpback scratching her back on our hull.

[jeremiason]

Three days into our fulltime cruising we were sailing sound along the California Coast 40 miles off Monterey Bay.

There was a lot of Humpback and Ocra whale activity around us... The Orcas were hunting the baby humpbacks.

I saw what looked like a dead humpback, about 40 feet long, floating in the water. I turned to avoid it and all of the sudden it swam belly against my hull. It slid down the port side slapping its fin against the side of the boat twice, chipping the gel coat on the top sides. When it finally swam aft of the boat it raised its tail in the air and dove.

We ended up with five, six foot long scratches in the bottom all the way into the fiberglass. I assume this was from the whale's barnacles.

Either way it scared the crap out of us and for the next 30 minutes or so I was searching for leaks in the bilge.

We never figured out why the whale behaved that way, but assume either it was freaked from the Killer Whale activity or it though my boat was sexy!

[Hudson Force]

When cruising from Tenants Harbor to Boothbay, Maine a few years ago, we saw what appeared to be a drifting tree trunk in the distance. As we came closer I noticed that the structure was moving against the current and what first appeared as a tree truck was a tattered dorsal fin. We attempted to round the whale at some distance, but we were apprached until I could see the large head of the whale sweep beneath our boat. I did not see the characteristic long fins of a Humpback and the disfigured dorsal fin seemed larger. The whale seemed to match the size of my 41' boat, but that was hard to judge. We were very impressed with this creature, but assumed that his behavior and location meant that he was near death.

[Liam Wald]

I do quite a lot of sailing on the California Coast between San Francisco and San Diego.
Spotting whales is a very common (almost daily) occurrence. On one occasion I was crossing Estero Bay (outside of Morro Bay) and realized that I happened to be in between a mother and a calf who were about 100 yards apart. I quickly came about as being between a mother and calf is not the best place to be.
Seems to me that the whale population in this part of the Pacific has greatly increased in the last 20 years or sso.

[Group9]

Nothing huge while on my boat. I was in a helicopter, in the Bahamas, and we came up on two Sperm Whales on the surface. Last thing I expected to see there.

[boatman61]

Lots of sightings/close encounters...
The one most fixed in my memory was of what I thought were dolphins playing with a whale in the distance turned out to be Orca attacking a Sperm whale and her pup... it went on a long time and by the time I got to the area in the light winds it was over.. but the haunting calls of the grieving mother will always be there...
Couple of days later an Orca pod turned up and checked me out... turned up every sunset for the next few days and spent the night..
Had young whales surfing round me crossing the Biscay... saw loads last year going down the W coast of Oz....
Azores seems they like to pop up right next to you and go "BOO"...

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by jeremiason

We never figured out why the whale behaved that way, but assume either it was freaked from the Killer Whale activity or it though my boat was sexy!

Underneith shape of boat can look like a whale to a whale... and the keel can look like a boy whales.... ummmm... well....ummmm you gotta be a girl whale and a bit shortsighted... if you get what I mean.

But thats true. Put your engine on and the girly whale will stop trying to bonk your boat.

[Rakuflames]

I've only seen one but we weren't out to sea. The club had sailed to Terra Ceia Bay, which is a small finger off Tampa Bay. We had just anchored when my friend said, "That's a whale!" There was a whale whose back had just broken the surface of the water. It seemed very odd because it wasn't at all deep there -- only about 8 ft.

Two days later they found a Bryde's whale ashore and dead not far from where we were. I always thought the whale had gone into Terra Ceia as a quiet place to die, but when 20 boats moved in, he left. There wasn't enough current where we were to wash him out. He had to have left under his own power.

A scientific group did a necropsy on him and found a lot of chest cavity damage with a lot of broken ribs. They speculated that he might have been hit by a freighter.

[David M]

Inside of the San Francisco Bay I had a whale surface alongside the boat about ten feet away. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. My very first thought was, how did I miss that log?, before looking over to see what it really was.

[Roy M]

We were winter sailing off San Diego, a grey day with good wind, sailing to weather on our forty foot trimaran, making good time. Suddenly, a couple boat lengths ahead, two grey whales surfaced in tandem, blowing spray. There wasn't time to change course or do anything but freak. They slid beneath our hulls without a trace. Very sobering and unforgettable moment.

[s/v Beth]

There seems to be a lot of whales on the forgotten coast. Last September we started seeing and hearing whales as we approached Flattery. The sun rose up the strait and there were humpbacks everywhere. In every direction. They stayed right there at the mouth, and were gone by Neah bay, but there must have been close to one hundred of them. Breeding? I will never know.

[rebel heart]

Lots of California greys off of Baja (Pacific side). Had dozens of them all around me for days. Lots of humpbacks in Banderas Bay.

I saw two blue whales off the Channel Islands in the summer while working on a sport fishing boat. Spotted them from the wheelhouse about a half mile off. HUGE whales. Made all the others look like dolphins.

[mub]

I had a conversation with a whale biologist (can't remember the proper name) about our local grey whales .. as they liked a good scratch on the keel.
She suggested changing the antifouling paint colour too something bright. i haven't tried it yet.

[roverhi]

Seasonally, we have humpbacks here in Hawaii. No problems with them unless you are downwind when they breathe. Other than that have seen nothing larger than dolphins in more than 10,000 miles of sailing in the Pacific and Atlantic.