whale

I didn’t do too much today.  I had had a rough week so I took it pretty easy on my one day off.  I spent a lot of time on the computer trying to get things sorted out for the next couple weeks, but other than that, not much.  I did take the time to go down to Hut Point after lunch though and I saw another whale!  It was pretty awesome.  I had been standing out there for about 10-15 minutes.  The wind always blows harder up on the hill at the end of Hut Point and I was beginning to get cold and as I turned to walk back down the hill I heard the whale behind me.  It is a hard noise to describe, but try to sound this out:  PPUHHHHHFFFisssssssssssstttttttttt.  That’s the best I can do.  That was the whale blowing out the breath it’d been holding for at least the 15 minutes I’d been standing there.  It was pretty close to me (relative) when it first surfaced and it made a very obvious loop to go back under the ice in the same direction it had come from.  It surfaced about 8-9 times.  The last one was right at the edge of the ice again and a lot more of it came out of the water as it prepared to go under for a while again.  It was a pretty neat experience.  Here is a picture, hopefully you can see it surfacing and it’s dorsal fin.  (I had zoomed in and cropped the spot out of this photo in the hopes that you could see the whale better.)  From what I understand, it was probably an Antarctic Minke Whale:

I also took a picture of the fuel tanker at the pier.  I took it from the same spot as I’d taken another one as a sort of before and after, here you go.

2009-12-03:

2010-01-24: