Human beings never cease to amaze me. Like the Juneau man who managed to snap a few quick shots of his pug getting whisked away by Romeo the Wolf, a tourist last summer managed to document his wife’s dramatic encounter with a humpback whale while aboard a tour boat in Stephens Passage.
On Aug. 15, 2006, Kimberly Kanaga was aboard the Awesome Orca (owned by Orca Enterprises) when a humpback whale collided with the boat and sent her careening forward, hitting the dashboard and apparently giving her a concussion.
Korry Keeker first reported the story Aug. 18.
After the story ran, he received an e-mail from Kimberly’s husband Mike, who detailed his version of what happened:
The boat slowed when approaching the area where other captains were watching a pod of Humpbacks. We had spotted 3 blasts (Two in front of us and one to the front-right of us. I have pictures of this whale.) The one I took pictures of was at the two o’clock position about 200 ‘ away. The captain continued to motor toward the ones directly in front of us. (He did not reverse the vessel at anytime.) The captain looked at my daughter and said, “Look, look there’s one coming under us!” (At this time we had people standing on the top deck and hanging out of the windows.) He did not take any evasive actions like turning to the left to deliver a glancing blow or yelling for us to hold on. (My 13 year old daughter was kneeling on the seat looking out the open window directly behind the captain’s seat and would have flown out if I had not grabbed her when he said that.) Instead, we collided head-on into the back of the whale as it was rolling, lifting the front of the boat to the left causing Kim to fly head-first from her standing position (Front left seat) to the captain’s area, hitting her forehead on the blunt, aluminum dashboard resulting in a concussion and interior/exterior stitching of her forehead. We were the only passengers in the front of the boat. The others had walked to the back to stand outside or climb up the ladder to the viewing platform.
Tour boats are obviously not supposed to collide with whales. It’s particularly bad when the whales are protected as an endangered species by the Endangered Species Act. As a result, Orca Enterprises was charged with violating the important rule that says boats must stay 100 yards from the whales. The company must pay a $9,000 fine ($2,000 was suspended if it avoids another similar incident for three years), said NOAA in a press release issued today.
“This case clearly demonstrates that failure to observe the proper whale watching restrictions can result in harm to both whales and humans,” said Scott Allee, a special agent with NOAA.
When I spoke this afternoon to Capt. Larry Dupler of Orca Enterprises, he said that clearly the captain on board the Awesome Orca, Scotty Davis, erred that day.
“Obviously the captain that was on the boat made a mistake,” he said.
Whales often dip out of sight under the water and can resurface anywhere, often close to boats, though collisions are extremely rare.
“This could happen to anybody at any time,” he said.
He also said that it would have been easy to fire the captain after the incident, but they company decided to keep him on because he was a good captain and this incident will only make him a better one.
Mike Kanaga e-mailed a series of photos, which start innocently enough with a series of spectacular whale photos. It ends with a few rather gory shots so beware.
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