An amazing moment between a boat full of tourists and a playful grey whale has been captured on camera by lucky passengers off the coast of Mexico.
As the grey whale surprised tourists by lifting its head out of the water and splashing back down, the friendly creature swam right up to the boat.
Getting alongside the boat, the whale even allowed passengers to rub its head and give it a quick kiss, obviously loving the attention it received from the awestruck tourists.
After a nice little head massage, though, the whale isn’t done playing around, and decides to give the boat a nudge in the right direction as it swims behind and seems to push the vessel forward.
Check it out here:
The first whale wasn’t alone, however, as more of the friendly creatures appeared in the water, happy to engage with the tourists and their boat, even helping push the boat along.
Grey whales can grow up to 50 feet (15 metres) and weight up to 40 tonnes, so getting up close and personal with one of these massive mammals is no mean feat.
And if you’re wondering what those things are on the whale’s skin, grey whales are often covered with barnacles and other organisms that give their snouts and back the appearance of ocean rock.
Barnacles feed on plankton, just like grey whales do, so the clever little crustaceans hitch a ride on a whale for a free meal. All they have to do is stick out their little arm and wait for the whale to swim through its next mouthful of plankton, according to Science Line.
It seems, when they’re out in the wild at least, whales love showing off for tourists.
Wildlife photographer John Goodridge captured the above moment, on a ‘Go Whale Watching’ cruise around Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
The UK expat said it was ‘one of the most spectacular breaches he had ever seen’ granted the whale almost ‘swamped’ the small boat into smithereens.
The tourists picked a great day for it, with around 30 whale breaches being recorded in just little over and hour, Mr Goodridge said.
He added:
The whales were really playful. Sometimes you can sit out there and not even see one, so we were really lucky.
To see a whale breach is really amazing. They actually do it to clean their skin of all the barnacles and parasites that have built up.
Humpback whales seem to get about a bit, as this pair were spotted by stunned tourists at a lodge in Port Hardy, British Columbia, Canada.
As the footage shows, a collection of huge humpback whales made the appearance in the waters by the lodge, splashing around and delighting onlookers.
As one person points towards the water two humpbacks burst from the depths.
Two of the women high-fived, hardly able to believe their luck, and turned back to the water just in time to see the whales rise up one last time before dipping back into the sea.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.