I was just perusing my photos from the last whale watching adventure and noticed this one. Somehow is slipped past me on the first run through.

This is a shot of a humpback whale’s flukes and yes flukes is plural. I always found this strange because the word tail isn’t plural so why would flukes need an “s” on the end? After all, flukes are a whale’s tail. Until finally someone explained (I wish I could remember who and credit them, but alas my memory is not that good) that each half of the tail is a fluke, so together that makes two flukes! So flukes it is.

Check out the left fluke in the photo, if you look closely you can see the little barnacles hitching a ride along the edge. Can you imagine living on a whale? What an adventure!

This photo is one of my favorites because it shows the water streaming off the flukes as the whale gracefully dives back down for another round of lunge feeding. And it reminds me of a wonderful trip surrounded by whales, my version of heaven.