West Coast California Sea Lions

Humpback whales are great whales or baleen whales: called baleen whales because they have baleen plates which they use to filter food from water, rather than having teeth to eat with. You can tell a humpback whale by their unique body shape: they have unusually long pectoral fins and knobby heads. Humpback whales are amazingly agile and often breach or spy-hop out of the water throwing two thirds or more of their body in the air and then creating a large cannon ball splash with their backs. Both male and females vocalize and it's the males who create the beautiful long and loud songs for which the species is famous - is it to attract the females? The whales form their sounds by forcing air through their massive nasal cavities and the songs are different for different areas: North Pacific whales songs will be the same but different from North Atlantic songs. A super cool whale to see out on a whale watching tour, they are one of our favourites.

These California sea lions were photographed by Archipelago Wildlife Cruises on one of their whale and wildlife watching tours.