Whale 1879, Sasha
Sasha is everyone's favorite whale. How could she not be with the letters "AK" so proudly held high on her left fluke? She is also known as "AK", "Alaska" and "Juneau", but nearly everyone calls her "Sasha".
A long-time Juneau regular (first cataloged in 2006), her favored hangout is on the west side of Shelter Island from the Sand Spit to Favorite Reef in Saginaw Channel. She's as close as can be counted on for a sighting as any whale here and with her especially unique tail, can be instantly identified, even at an oblique angle.
On September 2, 2010 I had the most incredible experience with this girl. Captain Nat Kugler and I are right in front of the Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute at the end of Lena Point with a Whales & Trails adventure on a rather yucky--read typical--day. Sasha puts on an amazing show.
A long-time Juneau regular (first cataloged in 2006), her favored hangout is on the west side of Shelter Island from the Sand Spit to Favorite Reef in Saginaw Channel. She's as close as can be counted on for a sighting as any whale here and with her especially unique tail, can be instantly identified, even at an oblique angle.
On September 2, 2010 I had the most incredible experience with this girl. Captain Nat Kugler and I are right in front of the Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute at the end of Lena Point with a Whales & Trails adventure on a rather yucky--read typical--day. Sasha puts on an amazing show.
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Breaching is not a common behavior in Alaska waters and when we do see it, it is mostly first year juveniles. In this sequence of photos Sasha is breaching in the "normal" manner with a dorsal side splash. In the third photo some skin from her belly can be seen sloughing off (is this the reason they breach???).
When I posted one of these on Facebook, my daughter Meagan commented "I want that house!"
When I posted one of these on Facebook, my daughter Meagan commented "I want that house!"
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To make a long story a bit shorter, Sasha does 42 breaches for us! Very curiously, she alternates dorsal (back) with ventral (belly) breaches as these two sequences illustrate. Nat and I have never seen anything like this before and our heads are shaking just trying to come to some terms that might give us a clue to what she is doing.
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In addition to what I consider very aggressive breaching, she also does quite a number of "backstroke" moves, lifting her very long pectoral fins out the the water and slapping them on the surface.
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At some point in her life, Sasha has suffered from some sort of entanglement with some sort of gear in the ocean. This shot from May 16, 2012 shows a very definite notch just forward of her dorsal fin. I've been through all my identified photos of her looking to see if I have any without this scar to determine when she got it, but don't have any. There is what seems to be a much older scar about a meter back from the dorsal fin that shows up in all of my photos of her. Another shows up just behind the blowhole and sweeps downward. It is likely that this was created by a lost line from fishing or crabbing, or perhaps from an anchored crab pot that she swam through.
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On the evening of July 18, 2013, my wife Annette and I are headed back to Juneau on the state ferry Fairweather. As we make the broad turn from Saginaw Channel into the waters of south Shelter Island, who should greet us with a lovely tail dive but my favorite whale, Sasha.