A Mentally Unbalanced Humpback Whale?

Anyways, we saw one young adult today who defied any description of humpback whale behaviour that I have ever observed. Bob (which is what we named this guy) was hanging out with stellar sea lions instead of other humpback whales. Not only was Bob hanging out and interacting with 10-20 sea lions at a time, but he also seemed to be mimicking their behaviour. Twisting and turning on the surface and throwing himself from side to side. Bob was even doing barrel rolls and swimming along on his back. Even more oddly, Bob approached the Nautilus Explorer a couple of times with his head out of the water – just like a sea lion. All I can say is that never before have I seen a humpback whale that so clearly wanted to be a sea lion. 

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Friendly giant manta ray interaction with divers

The west side of Socorro Island has beautiful rolling hills with low green vegetation that is gradually turning brown as the residual moisture from last summer’s hurricane season drys up. Divers lucked out with a large and very friendly giant manta ray that stuck with them for a great interaction during one dive. Humpback whales were all around and spent their day breaching, fluking and singing whale songs that could be heard underwater.

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