Old friend "Jor," and a close encounter in the lanes.

It took us a little longer than usual to find the whales today, as the majority of them moved a bit east. But once we did, the encounters were fantastic. Among 10+ humpback whales and 250 common dolphins, old friend Jor made an appearance.

Our crew has been watching Jor https://happywhale.com/individual/1441 for over 8 years. A large female whale, she has a distinctive chunk missing from her right tail fluke, most likely from an encounter with killer whales. "Jör" is short for Jörmungandr, a sea monster in Norse mythology that bites its own tail. Jor had a calf, an unusually beat-up calf, which is interesting, considering the last time we saw her with a calf in 2021, it was also unusually scarred. We guess Jor raises her young to be fighters!

Jor.

Soon, 3 other whales joined Jor and her calf. 5 whales were socializing with one another and breathing in sequence; it was quite a sight!

After leaving these 5 socializing whales, 4 more caught our attention. They were directly in the shipping lanes and had a large container ship barreling down on them. It is always a bit of a stressful situation watching this occur. However, the "ONE" ship was adhering to the voluntary vessel speed reduction zone request, traveling at a whale-safe speed. A collaborative program https://bluewhalesblueskies.org works with shipping companies that transit through the channel in hopes of getting them to slow down for the whales. Over 85% of the miles being travelled through the channel are happening at whale-safe speeds.

Until Next Time,

The SBWW Crew