Bubble Netting

July 27, 2007 - Juneau, Alaska (more specifically - Stephens Passage)

Tyler and I have this joke. I’ve already explained my intense fascination with all things watery. What I failed to mention was my numerous previous attempt to find whales. I’ve even been on a boat, in the Pacific Ocean, during the migration season…and had everyone on the boat see a whale. Except me. I missed it. Needless to say it became the source of much comedy in our household…especially when planning the whale watching trip.

We booked a whale watching trip with Orca Enterprises. While doing my research I found that they saw humpback whales on every trip and orcas on one in every five trips during the summer. They quoted a 99.9% success rate.

Tyler, of course, insisted that by being on their boat, I would ruin their average.

The day we left for our whale watching trip, I had already seen humpback whales while traveling through the inside passage…so I figured, anything is good. Still, I couldn’t help but feel like Alice Walker in her essay, Looking for Zora. In the story, Alice is looking for Zora Neale Hurston’s unmarked grave. The cemetery is no longer used and has been extremely neglected. Alice is standing in waist-high weeds, her feet in sand, with unseen snakes and ants all around. Desperate, she starts to yell, “Zora!”. I love that story. Although it seems odd (and probably wrong to most people), there’s a quiet desperation in my heart. I can imagine it. Standing at the bow of the boat, shouting, “Whales! Where are you? Show yourselves! Please!!!”

It turns out. I didn’t have to yell. However, I did decide that I was the luckiest woman on earth.

I should note before I go any further that I didn’t manage to take any pictures. I was too busy being shocked. Literally. Lucky for me, Tyler thinks he might want to be a photographer, so he was able to keep his camera rolling.

Bubble netting or bubble net feeding is unique to humpback whales. It also doesn’t happen in all places. The Alaska Whale Foundation has a great page that explains it in detail. Humpback whales are individual animals. They don’t travel in groups. Yet, with bubble netting, a group of humpbacks will come together to feed. The whales blow bubbles to form a “net” to force a school of fish together. The whales then rise together with their mouths open to catch the fish. (That is the lay version of bubble net feeding.)

On the boat, we were watching this process from a distance. Then all of a sudden, right next to the boat, the water started bubbling. And the whales came too.

I cried. I know it’s silly…but it was so amazing. I felt so honored that I was able to witness it. Tyler has admitted that I’m probably not cursed anymore. Oh…and we also saw eagles and sea lions.

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