That is where the greatest challenges lie. If I wanted to get my name in the newspaper, there are far easier ways to do it. It was a majestic creature, very large, very grand and astoundingly beautiful. I could hear whales a few hundred yards off my port side. From their spouts or blows I could tell that they are a baleen species.
Baleen whales have two blowholes, where toothed whales usually just have one.
With a few spouts it was easy to tell that there were two blowholes. I'd given up hope of seeing more than an occasional dorsal fin of their dive sequence when one of the whales breached. It took my breath away. The whale came way out of the water, nearly vertical and then did a small turn and landed on its side. It looked like a Minke whale, but it could have been any of the same family.