— by Lin McNulty —
Reports of a gray whale in East Sound are floating about the island, with a couple of instances of actual sightings at Crescent Beach. Personally, I have heard something big with a blow hole the last couple of nights in the waters off my cottage on East Sound.
Deborah Giles, Center for Whale Research (CWR) Research Director, was not aware of any reports when we contacted her, but was excited to hear the news. Senior research scientist at the CWR Ken Balcomb, also not aware of any sightings, told us it would not be surprising, and would be good news if true. “The population is recovering, and they could be looking for habitat.”
John Calambokidis, a Research Biologist and one of the founders of Cascadia Research was not available for comment. Cascadia Research specifically tracks Gray Whales.
The gray whale is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly.
Pictures, sightings, reports, comments, anyone?
I saw it today with many other onlookers several hundred feet off Crescent Beach at 4:45PM. Lot’s of people with camera’s and big lenses so hopefully some nice photo’s will surface in the coming days.
The whale was 100 feet off our beach just south of Thistle Point (west side of East Sound) slowly meandering its way up East Sound and then back down south. SeaDoc, to which I reported the sighting, was very interested, and said that 2 other people also reported seeing a whale. They said it was either a grey or humpie, and that as they are on their way north, this one probably just took the wrong turn and ended up in a dead end sound.
To see and hear a huge whale so close, with barnacles on its back and breathing gently through its blow hole, was truly a thrill I will never forget. And, no, I forgot to take photos. Damn!!