IP38 Estrellita sailing with Whales

WOW!! 2pm this afternoon Amy was sitting facing forward in the back of the cockpit and just out of the corner of her eye she saw a 20ft WHALE cruise out of a big rolling swell and come abreast of Estrellita's port quarter and then turn and cut under the keel!
Couple minutes later we both saw him. In fact, for the next hour he played with Estrellita's hull. The swells were really big, the biggest were big smooth 4 to 5 meter, smooth, slow rollers. This guy would hang about 50 meters behind the boat waiting for one of the nice big ones, then still under the water he would accelerate down the wave and come beside Estrellita and then either go on ahead and cut around the bow or cut under the keel and come up on the other side. We watched this activity dozens of times. Many times he would roll over on one side and show us his belly while he swam beside us with his tail and pectoral fins cutting the water like a big shark. A couple of times he actually came beside and swam totally inverted, belly up, right beside the boat for maybe 10 second passes. All of these passes and sitting waiting behind the boat waiting for the big swell while he was just under the water.
As usual we snapped about 150 photos and looking at them in the computer I can see about 4 or 5 that are really nice! Wait til we get internet and we'll send them.
Otherwise we are rolling along. making sometimes 5 knots, sometimes 6. Always with 15 to 20 knots of wind dead on the stern and usually 3 to 4 meter swells from the ESE. Slow, Rolly and a little tense waiting for the next big roll but steadily eating up the miles on the way to Rodriguez.

Bill and Amy
8-22-12 1800hrs UTC
S13 30 E92 03

Map of this location..

I wrote the following note a couple weeks ago while we were sailing in the southern Indian Ocean. We just finally got web access so here it is with the photos...

This is the best shot we got of him. But some of the others are pretty good too!


He would ride back there patiently waiting for the swell to build so that he could ride it down to Estrellita. A little ominous...


A little closer. In this one he is on his way.


On some passes he inverted and showed us his bottom side. Look how close he is.


Sometimes he just came in right side up. I failed to get a photo of the most dramatic pass where he came in on his side with his
belly toward us and his pectoral and tail fins cutting the water like a big shark.


Here you can just see him dipping under the port side. This is similar to the first moment Amy saw him.


Bill