It started out as a typical ferry ride in Gulf of Kachemak. Then a minke whale rose into the air.

Brian Herbst had a famous vacation in Alaska. He caught sea bass and halibut, saw moose and bears, stopped in yurt – and in moment of perfect time, managed to photograph of minke whale in the middle of the strait, suspended above the water of Gulf of Kachemak.

snapshot shows the whale is parallel above the water almost as if in competition in belly jumping competition, air plank or bay swimming like hovercraft.

July 12 Herbst was on Danny Jay Ferry heads to The Saltry for lunch. in halibut cove when captain announced what a whale was off in in distance. Using his daughterschool yearbook camera and a borrowed lens, it started to click photos.

When the boat turned, the whale began to swim towards him.

“I was like front row on this and I was like”I’m going to get this thing, cha-cha-cha-cha,” Herbst said, replaying the moment during a video interview from his North Carolina. home on Thursday morning.

He knew he got the perfect shot.

[A killer whale was headed toward a sea otter in Kachemak Bay. Then the otter hopped on a boat — and stayed there.]

Herbst then sent the photo to The Saltry, which posted image to your social media page. From there, the photo began to spread online, gathering thousands of Like with signatures like “LEVITATION” as well as “The little minke goes to room.”

The minke whale is rarely captured on camerasaid Mark Webber, marine mammal research scientist and instructor at the Kachemak Bay campus of university of Alaska Anchorage.

He said it was “a wonderful photo”.

The photo shows the sharp dorsal fin of a whale on top of this is body and white stripe on its fin is a defining characteristic of minke whales, according to Webber. Although the whale is parallel to the water, it is actually tilted slightly, showing off this is light underbelly.

It is not known why the whales break through feeding up out of water and flight air, Webber said. It could be way to signal other whales by making a loud entry into the water, or “some heightened state of excitement or demonstration of abundance,” he said, “but this just speculation.

Webber even got the reports of minke whales in which the people said they saw a large dolphin, not knowing it was a minke, and could not estimate its size. At first, Herbst thought that the whale he saw was a dolphin. on what he saw in North Carolina.

Minke whales are the most shy of time, ignoring and avoiding boats so that they are not often seen people.

[A creeping mass of insect larvae near a Denali lodge raises the question: ‘Am I hallucinating?’]

The minke whale is the smallest of the baleen whales. in Alaska waters. They weigh up up to 20,000 pounds and are typically 25 to 30 feet long when mature, much smaller than their giant counterparts, like humpback, blue and gray whales.

And they fast, Webber said. Minke whales eat by producing speed rushes in groups of smaller fish like herring and anchovies, swallowing in large sips. Then they strain the water out through their mustache, nail-like structure that hangs down in plays and acts like sieve, he said.

Back in Kachemak Bay, minke whale breakthrough followed by lunch of halibut tacos for Herbst and his family, who we in Alaska for his mother’s 85th birthday. They are made it’s like Homer weather it became windy and cold.

“We just hit it’s so beautiful,” he said. “It was just made happen.”

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