Whales don't read law books
There is a federal law that states that no vessel may approach closer than 100 yards to a humpback whale. However there is nothing in the law that says you cannot position your vessel over a 100 yards away and cut the engine. That’s just what happened when we went out with Captain Larry of Orca Enterprises when we stopped in Juneau on our first Alaskan Cruise.
We had several recommendations for Captain Larry so we booked him site unseen several months in advance. The office was just across the street from the pier. Literally we could see the storefront from our veranda. Talk about convenient!
On his boats, he can carry much more passengers but sets the limit to 23. I think with my 15 month old daughter, we were at 23.25. This allowed for ease of walking around his boat during the journey. Captain Larry knew his stuff. We noted the radio calls from other boats (many of which were operated by the vendors for the various cruise lines) asking where he was headed.
We could see various pods swimming and a bit of bubble net feeding going on when suddenly he turned the boat and the engine went to idle. To our port, we saw an approaching humpback. Silently it glided towards us and then went into a dive underneath Captain Larry’s boat. I snapped this photo of the whale’s fluke just before it dove under.
I remain every grateful that whales are not able to read law books! They don’t know they are not supposed to swim within 100 yards of a boat!
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