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Humpback whales are known for their extremely long flippers. These flippers can be up to 1/3 of their body length. They have the longest flippers of any whale.
Humpbacks can swim between 3 to 9 mile per hour (mph), but reach speeds up to 16.5 mph when theatened. Their average speed while feeding is between 1.2 to 3.5 mph.
. | Humpback Whales
Contributor:
AlaskaPhotography.com
July 1998 Send this Page to a Friend 
Click Here to Send a Postcard This photo was taken from a 22 ft. Osprey on a "halibut" venture out of Homer Alaska. We headed across Kachemak Bay toward Seldovia and kept hearing "pppttt" in the distance. After at least a half hour of listening and fishing for halibut we decided it just had to be whales and headed even further into the bay. Not far from the Baron Islands we came across these graceful humpback whales feeding in pods. We shot at least 4 rolls of film with whales surfacing literally 10 feet from the boat! It was quite exciting as most of the whales were definitely 'longer' than our boat! There were at least 4 pods of 6-10 humpback whales each swimming toward each other then heading under just feet from each other. It was a sight to behold! I hope you enjoy the select photos as much as we enjoyed taking them.
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