1879, Sasha, 2011 Calf
On May 14,2011 on exactly the opposite sort of day, Captain Rich Morris and I are headed north up Stephens Passage on a Whales & Trails adventure along the west (back) side of Douglas Island along the shore of Admiralty Island. We come upon a cow and calf cruising northward and follow them for a while. Finally, mom dives.
I literally scream "Sasha had a baby!" while jumping up and down in the boat. I felt like a grandpa! And suddenly an idea overwhelmed me that I knew what Sasha was doing last September. Nat and I didn't know she was pregnant, but now I do. I think she was breaching to move the now rather large 9-month old fetus within her into a more comfortable position. The fetus is probably around a ton in weight. Even with the buoyancy of the ocean, it seems that this large mass in mom's belly could be the cause of some discomfort. I have no way of determining if my "wild idea" is correct, but it seems logical.
I literally scream "Sasha had a baby!" while jumping up and down in the boat. I felt like a grandpa! And suddenly an idea overwhelmed me that I knew what Sasha was doing last September. Nat and I didn't know she was pregnant, but now I do. I think she was breaching to move the now rather large 9-month old fetus within her into a more comfortable position. The fetus is probably around a ton in weight. Even with the buoyancy of the ocean, it seems that this large mass in mom's belly could be the cause of some discomfort. I have no way of determining if my "wild idea" is correct, but it seems logical.
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On August 17, 2011 I get a rather oblique shot of a whale's tail that I'm not able to identify, either with Suzie's or the Southeastern Alaska catalog. It turns out this is my first "baby tail" as Suzie identifies it as Sasha's calf. On July 22, 2012, Suzie re-sights the calf, now two years old, near Ralston Island, recognizing it from my 2011 photo (on the left).