A friend of mine told me a story about paddling around somewhere in SE and happened to get into the middle of the "bubble circle" as he called it. He said he just kept paddling (I'm sure he increased the cadence a bit), and they just came up behind him, no big deal. Of course this guy also spend the entire winter in the interior bush, running his trap line by himself with no human contact for a couple months. I've never seen him get excited about much. Myself, I don't even like sea lions next to me when I'm in a kayak, I don't think I'd like whales that close.