It Was A Day At The Spa For This Whale
Photo credit: RYAN LAWLER, NEWPORT COASTAL ADVENTURE
Beach goers along California’s Newport Beach were treated to a close encounter with a young grey whale who came extremely close to shore.
While a whale coming close to shore is not that unusual, what the whale was up to was something we land mammals rarely see … a grey whale spa day.
That’s right. This whale was taking full advantage of the shallow, sandy ocean floor for a skin scrub, a behavior they do to scratch barnacles off their skin surface. And who could blame him. Who wants barnacles?
“The whale was doing circles in 15 feet of water. It would do that, and then it would go even shallower in 8 feet of water and do some barrel rolls,” Ryan Lawler, founder of Newport Coastal Adventure, told The Orange County Register. “This is actually one of the most leisurely gray whales I’ve seen.”
In addition to having a good scrub, the whale took some time to grab some grub.
Photo credit: RYAN LAWLER, NEWPORT COASTAL ADVENTURE
“I’ve never seen a gray whale feed. They normally don’t feed off our coast,” he said. “They don’t feed at all during migration. Our passengers got to see a very unique look at the whale’s baleen. It was a pretty special day.”
More grey whales are expected to move through the area as the migration season approaches. Folks along Newport coast need to be on the lookout because they seem to have themselves a Whale Day Spa.
