Taking pictures out on the boat today proved rather difficult as we battled 15ft. swell waves! High swells obscure our view of the whales and makes it extremely difficult to get shots of their flukes. We stayed with a group for about 10 minutes in the swells and eventually had to call it quits. The swells are not too swell for photo ID’s!
This time of year is known as the austral winter, which means that storms are a regular occurrence in the Southern Hemisphere. Waves from storms all the way down in Antarctica can travel northwards all the way to Panama and affect the waves here. Swells travel in the same way as light and sound: in wavelengths. Swells have also been known to travel up to 20,000km, halfway around the globe!
Hopefully the swells will die down soon and we can return to getting more fluke ID’s!
