Image

The Ocean in Her Life

Ella Ruth Goodman, age 4, went on her first whale watch this summer in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and discovered another world beneath the waves. Her mother, Jessica, snapped this picture of Ella Ruth mesmerized by the flukes of a diving humpback, a photo that won WHOI’s second annual #OceanInMyLife Instagram contest. According to Jessica, Ella Ruth learned to look for seagulls and the  blue-green patch of water that indicates where a whale or group of whales is about to surface. She was also so entranced by a sample of baleen that for weeks afterward she explained to people how whales use it to feed. (Photo by Jessica Goodman)