Next, our pilot and the pilot of the neighboring boat did a little dance. We pulled close to their boat, and put our hands in the water and splashed, trying to entice the whale to come visit us. It worked! As they handed off the whale calf to us, they left and we had a chance to commune with the baby. The calf was about 35 feet long (10 feet longer than our boat!) and very playful. It would surface and stick it's head out of the water and check us out. It would allow us to touch it, and run our hand along the soft, smooth surface of its skin. It would come along side the boat, then dive under, and surface on the other side, or circle our boat. This continued for probably 15 minutes. Meanwhile, mommy whale was watchfully keeping tabs on junior and us, making sure everything was OK. She swam once under our boat, maybe 10 feet below the surface. Her huge fluke passed right under us, and she could easily have capsized our little boat with a flick of her powerful tail. WOW.