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I was on a whale watching tour years ago when the captain noticed a smaller boat tailing us. It appeared to be an affluent family that had chartered the boat to
by ianhawes 5y ago
I was on a whale watching tour years ago when the captain noticed a smaller boat tailing us. It appeared to be an affluent family that had chartered the boat to get a closer view of whales. Our captain would kill the engine when in the vicinity of a whale, and we would drift a bit. It was nice because it would get quiet and you could track their movements better. The boat tailing us wasn’t doing the same thing and came precariously close to several whales. The family had high powered cameras and could basically look over the edge and straight down at some of the whales we saw. Unfortunately for them they also broke federal law by being too close under their own power. As we headed home we saw the Coast Guard intercept them. Our Captain had radioed it in. He estimated they were hit with some hefty fines.
- conductr 5y agoThat’s essentially what they were doing, roles reversed us being the private charter. Our captain said something to the effect of “if I did that they’d report me” but I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t report them. It seemed to me those bigger boats were actually a threat to harming the whale. Our boat I think not so much (~39’) and we always jumped to the side of the whale whereas the bigger boats cut it off which in my mind increased the odds of a collision. Edit: found the boats based on their names https://whalewatch.com/ https://whalewatch.com/