Humpback Whale Breach 232

I took a gamble when I decided to ship my 12′ Achilles inflatable boat and 15hp Honda outboard motor to Lanai last fall. I had never gone whale watching in the area, though, I had seen a ton of whales from shore during my previous winter visits. Since my boat was so small, I needed the weather to cooperate and crossed my fingers that the whales would provide me with some dramatic photo opportunities. Once I was there, I required an enormous amount of patience and dedication to be out on the ocean every day, but never in my wildest imagination did I expect to encounter as many breaching whales as I did. I have probably observed over 1000 breaches over the last decade, but after my two trips to Lanai this winter that total is now closer to 2000! This image of a humpback whale breaching was created in the ‘Au‘au Channel on the north side of Lanai on an overcast day. I really like how far the whale is out of the water and all of the spray and its blow are perfectly frozen at 1/2000 second. The island and cloud backdrop also makes this image much more interesting to me than just a simple horizon. A lot of people have commented to me over the years how much nicer my breaching whale images are from Alaska compared to Hawaii or Tonga because of the background. I hope that my regular readers won’t get bored with all of the new breaching images that I will be sharing in the coming weeks.