While I was up front raising our anchor to leave I heard the tell-tale sound of a whale spouting nearby. I turned to see the water slick left behind, then watched as they surfaced again right next to another boat in the bay. They continued out around the point and I figured they were gone.

But as we motored out of the bay I spotted them coming back our way again. I slipped the motors into neutral and grabbed the drone to follow them around. This was the first good look we’d had at them, and is when we first saw that they were a mama and calf blue whale.

The calf would slip directly underneath the mama while they swam along just under the surface for a few hundred yards, and would only appear as the mama came up for a breath. It’s kind of wild to realize she is twice the length of our boat, and weighs about 250,000 pounds. It’s easy to see how a collision with a whale rarely ends well for a boat.

The largest animal ever known to have existed on earth, and here they are swimming right next to us in just 100′ of water.

Eventually the drone’s low battery alarm screamed at me and we sailed off towards our next destination. A nice spot where we immediately jumped in the water to find turtles cruising around. From Komodo dragons in the morning, to Blue whales and turtles in the afternoon, it had been quite a day. Indonesia is exceeding expectations by a wide margin.